Dichotomy
by Arathe
Summary: HIATUS Ed and Roy find themselves in the hands of a madman with a vendetta, one with a very unique idea of what constitutes 'Equivalent Exchange.' Roy/Ed
1. Prologue

:Dichotomy:

:Prologue:

**Dichotomy **(dahy-kot-uh-mee) _n._

1. Division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.

2. Division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups.

* * *

Edward lay curled up on cold concrete, listening to the even breathing of the man beside him. The wet, alarming rattle that accompanied every breath had not gone away, but at least Roy was sleeping. He hadn't slept enough lately, and Ed knew that was his fault. Roy worried too much about him, and that worry kept the man awake long after Edward had passed out from exhaustion or pain. In spite of everything, he was glad the general was there, and he couldn't help but feel a stab of guilt at being so selfish. Roy was his anchor; talking to Edward during the long dark hours, the sound of his voice a comfort Ed could not have done without.

Roy's voice held the despair at bay.

He suspected it might be the same for the general; that having Edward to look after, someone to talk to outside his own head was what kept him sane. They kept each other from giving up, each reminding the other that there was a world outside their prison, and that even if the rest of the world forgot them, there were a handful of people who would never stop looking. It was a slim hope really, and Ed was pretty sure he and Roy were doing nothing but exchanging their self-delusions, but it was better than sitting alone in the darkness, waiting to die.

Edward shifted and stretched cramped muscles as best he could in the too-small cage, careful to avoid jostling the man beside him. If he looked hard enough, he could barely make out the steady rise and fall of Roy's chest; everything beyond was swallowed in darkness. Outside the cage was a quiet medley of sound, animal noises belonging to the occupants of other cages in this strange prison. Ed had seen a few when the lights were on; the wolf directly across from them, birds and reptiles and other things glimpsed when they dragged him from the cage for his 'sessions.'

The cold floor was leeching away any heat he might produce, leaving him chilled to the bone. Ed pulled the oversized shirt his wore over his knees in an attempt to capture some warmth. The shirt belonged to Roy; his own clothing had been taken and not returned after his first session. The thin fabric did little to keep him warm and he shifted closer to Roy, torn between not wanting to wake him and the need for warmth and human contact. Roy usually insisted that Ed keep the dirty, threadbare blanket, but after the general had fallen asleep, Ed had carefully tucked it around the older man. Roy was sick; he wasn't.

The debate was solved for him when Roy suddenly rolled onto his side and coughed, a wet, chest-deep hacking that sent a prickle of fear up Edward's spine. He wasn't sure what was wrong with Roy, but the sickness seemed to be in his lungs, and Ed was terrified the other man was going to die. The fit passed, and Roy groaned and rolled on his back with a muttered curse. Without a word, Ed slipped beneath the small blanket and curled against Roy's side, tucking his head under his chin. He was long past any sort of embarrassment over the close contact.

Roy shifted slightly and wrapped an arm around him. "You're freezing," he said, concern coloring his words as he rubbed Ed's arm, trying to warm him.

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one who keeps trying to cough up a lung," Ed snapped, worry making the words sharper than he had intended. "You need to keep warm more than I do."

A gentle touch on his hair. "I'm not going to die, Ed," Roy said, addressing the unspoken fear.

"Who said I was worried?" he demanded weakly, curling closer and snaking an arm over Roy's chest. More than anything, Ed hated how helpless he was. He fought them when he could, minor rebellion that never got him anywhere. The loss of his arm rendered his alchemy useless, and there was nothing he could do for Roy but try to keep the man warm and tie himself in knots with worry. After their ordeal, Edward found himself much closer to the general than he had imagined possible, and the idea of losing Roy frankly terrified him.

Roy said nothing, merely held him tighter in response.

Light flooded the room and Edward started awake, blinking owlishly at the sudden brightness. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He sat up, trading a glance with Roy and waited to see what the day would bring. Sometimes, they were ignored in favor of other experiments. Sometimes the tall, thin one, the one Ed had dubbed 'Glasses' would just talk; the ramblings often mad, but some days frighteningly sane. Often, they took Ed for another torturous session.

The sound of footsteps and a moment later, Glasses crouched in front of their cage, smiling. Ed tensed; that smile usually did not bode well.

"Good morning Edward, General," he sang, mad brown eyes finding Edward's.

Ed met that gaze steadily, practically growling out his hatred of the man. Unease gripped him; something was different today.

"Did you sleep well?" The man asked, "I do hope so. You'll need your strength today; it would be a shame if you died." Edward froze, eyes darting to Roy for a brief moment. That wasn't part of the pattern, and it made the hairs on his neck stand on end. Glasses was always rambling about revenge; would this be the day he decided to kill him?

"The problem with this procedure," Glasses continued, motioning to the mountain of a man --the one Ed thought of as 'Bear.'-- that served as his assistant. "Is that the fatality rate is very high. You will die eventually, of course, but you have not yet suffered enough. Not nearly enough."

Ed fought down the dread that threatened and shrugged out of Roy's shirt. He always left it behind when they took him, otherwise he likely wouldn't see it again. Glasses pulled a gun out of his coat and trained it calmly on Roy. A simple way to ensure cooperation on both their parts. If Ed fought, Roy died. If Roy fought, Roy died.

Sliding around Roy towards the door of the small cage, he paused when the older man reached out and grabbed his wrist. _Run. _Roy mouthed, his back to their captor so he wouldn't see. Ed scowled and jerked his wrist from Roy's grip, angry that the general thought he was coward enough to make a run for it and leave the other man for dead. Screw him and his martyr complex anyway; they got out together or not at all.

He could say none of this however, and so he settled on a glare and a muttered, "Keep warm," as he knelt by the door, waiting. Bear unlocked the door and caught Ed's arm in a strong grip, helping him out before slamming the door shut again with a sharp clang, the lock clicking back into place.

Glasses returned the gun to his pocket and stood. Ed kicked at the bastard hard out of pure spite, snarling when Glasses stepped easily out of the way. He frowned, annoyed. "You should be conserving your strength." The smile returned and Ed shivered. "You'll need it."

Ed stumbled when Bear suddenly nudged him toward the lab and through the door. A vague fear heavy in his gut, Ed twisted in Bear's grip, trying to get one last look at Roy. His eyes met the older man's worried gaze for a brief moment before the door slammed shut.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: I'm not entirely pleased with this chapter, but after fiddling with it for ages, I decided this was the best I was going to get. Things should get a bit easier to write from the next chapter on. Enjoy!

::Chapter 1::

Edward gnawed on the tip of his pen absently, flipping through the thick ledger that Al had insisted they keep. With a triumphant "Aha!" he found the entry he was looking for. Powell, Kendra. Repaired: One wobbly chair, one broken plate, and one creaky front door. With a glance at the large basket of fresh vegetables resting on the table, he marked the entry paid.

Personally, Ed thought the ledger was kind of pointless. They received payment in the form of food and goods more than they ever did money, anyway. But his brother insisted --said it was a good practice-- and somehow, Al always got his way.

The small alchemy shop he ran with Al had been more of a whim than anything when they started it. Something the small community lacked; a way to do a bit of good and help support themselves. Word spread quickly however, and a surprising amount of demand for their services combined with the fact that Ed was something of a homegrown celebrity caused their tiny business to practically explode. It wasn't long before people were coming to Risembool from miles around to have them fix broken possessions, repair old barns, and help remodel houses.

Slamming the ledger closed and placing it back on its shelf, Ed snatched a carrot from the basket and flopped down on the couch beside Al, who was sorting through the mail. "Anything interesting?" he asked, peering over his brother's shoulder.

"Not really...Oh!" Al grinned and pulled a letter from the stack written in suspiciously familiar script. "There's a 'Thank You' letter from Eve here," he said, thrusting it at Ed who scrambled away with a shudder. He wasn't touching that thing; chances were it unfolded into a man-trap. He wouldn't put it past her.

Al laughed and put the letter on the table. "Oh, she isn't that bad, Brother. She just likes you."

"That's the problem, Al," Ed muttered, casting mistrustful glances at the supposedly harmless letter. Eve was aggressive. And _determined._And more than a little terrifying. Ed was also pretty sure that she broke things on purpose just to have a reason to turn up on his doorstep _every damned day._

"Oh, this one's from the Brigadier General!" Al said, pulling out a letter in an official military envelope. Curious, Ed scooted closer as Al opened the letter. Mustang wrote pretty regularly, but he didn't usually use military stationary.

Ed scanned the letter. It was an invitation to...oh hell. "Promoted again," he muttered, making a face at the letter. The last thing he wanted was to go to some stuffy military function. He should have been free of those when he retired, dammit.

"That's wonderful!" Al exclaimed, and Ed just rolled his eyes and flopped back, taking a bite of his carrot.

"Not going," he grunted.

"How can you say that, Brother?" Al chided, folding the invitation and sticking it back in the envelope. "He's our friend, and besides, this will be a nice opportunity to see everyone in Central again."

"We were there two months ago, Al," Ed grumbled. "If you make me go there more than once a year I swear I'm going to start killing people."

"Well," Al said, a glint in his eye that Edward did not like. "I'm going even if you don't. Which means you'll be all alone. With Eve. For a week."

Edward leaped up, dashing off and calling over his shoulder, "I'll start packing!"

"Brother! We don't have to leave for another two weeks!"

* * *

Alphonse glanced down at Ed when his brother snorted and shifted slightly before settling back to sleep on his Al-shaped pillow. He had always envied his brother's ability to fall asleep seemingly at will on trains. Being able to sleep the whole time would make the trip considerably less dull. Or at the very least, if he couldn't sleep, Ed could stay awake so he would have someone to talk to. Grinning to himself, Al bounced his knee sharply, rolling his eyes when Edward didn't so much as twitch at the sudden motion. 

It was worth a shot.

He turned his attention back to the countryside rolling by outside, the trees nothing more than one long shadow in the dark. The shapes of houses were becoming more and more frequent, and they would probably be arriving in Central some time within the next hour. Alphonse felt a bit guilty arriving in the middle of the night, especially since Roy had promised to pick them up and give them a ride to the hotel, but the train had to make an emergency stop two towns earlier and it put them several hours behind schedule.

They had called ahead to alert the brigadier general, Alphonse apologizing profusely for the delay, but Roy had still insisted on picking them up. Al smiled inwardly. He was a very kind man, despite how much he enjoyed teasing his brother, and Al liked him a great deal. He suspected Ed did too, but his pride probably prevented him from admitting that he liked a man with a seemingly endless repertoire of short jokes, even a little.

It was fun to watch them together, and if Al wanted to be honest, their visits to Central were...reassuring. The past three years, ever since Ed had restored his body and they had moved back to Risembool, his brother had become something of a shut-in. Outside of work, Edward seemed to have no desire to spend time with, well...anyone besides Al. Not that he wasn't touched that Ed felt his company was all he needed, and Ed certainly seemed happy enough but he really felt his brother needed more outside interaction. Ed might always grumble about the visits, but once they were there, he enjoyed himself. Talked to people without Alphonse having to prod him, even. It was nice.

The squeal of brakes and a gentle jerk as the train shuddered to a stop pulled him from his thoughts. Looking out the window, Al realized they were already in Central. They must have been closer than he had realized. "Brother," he called, shaking a black-clad shoulder. Edwards grumbled but didn't open his eyes, swatting at Al's hand. Alphonse shook his head and gently pushed his brother off his lap. "We're here," he said a bit more loudly.

Edward yawned and sat, leaning over Al and staring out the window blearily. He grunted and got to his feet, fishing his suitcase out from underneath the seat. Al followed suit, smiling to himself as he followed his still half-sleeping brother off the train.

* * *

Daniel Markham pushed his glasses up his nose, surreptitiously watching the two young men seated nearby as the train crawled through Central towards the station. One stared out the window distantly, the other slept with his head pillowed on his brother's lap. His fingers twitched with the urge to act, and he folded them firmly in his lap. He had waited too long and come too far to let impulse get the best of him now. 

It was unfortunate that the Elric brothers had left Risembool when they had; it had thrown something of a wrench into his plans. He tugged idly on the cuff of his shirt. Perhaps, he mused, it would turn out to be a blessing in disguise. If they vanished here, in Central, there would be little cause for immediate alarm and once their friends realized something was amiss, Daniel would be long gone with his prize. It had taken some quick thinking to adjust his plans, but he was clever enough to handle a few unexpected changes.

He could scarcely believe it was nearly time. He had spent years carefully crafting his vengeance, years of planning and waiting, of research and testing. Daniel had needed to make sure everything was ready, perfect, the procedure as stable and precise as he could manage. It was vital, so very important, that Edward Elric suffer just as he had suffered, but worse, oh yes, much worse. That he suffer until he could not live for the pain, despair tearing away at him with poison claws until there was nothing left.

Daniel took a deep breath to calm himself. Couldn't allow himself to get over-excited. It might lead to mistakes, and he knew that with this particular prey, a single mistake might be the end of it. He was too clever by half, if the stories were true, and Daniel would give him no room to exercise that cleverness. None at all.

The train came to a stop, and he watched the younger brother rouse the elder, before turning to his own companion. He elbowed the large man to get his attention. Gentle grey eyes blinked down at Daniel, questioning. "Grab our luggage, Benjamin. It's time to go."

* * *

"What the hell do you _mean_you don't have a room?" Edward snarled at the unfortunate clerk, who drew back slightly in alarm. "I made the damn reservation two weeks ago! Elric, check again." 

With a sigh, the man did as he was told, Ed tapping automail fingers on the counter impatiently. This was stupid. He'd made the reservations weeks ago, had even called ahead before they left to double-check. "I'm sorry Mr. Elric," the man said with a shake of his head, "but I simply don't have a reservation for you. We're booked solid for the next two weeks because of the festival. There is always a chance of a cancellation, if you'd like to wait, but otherwise I'm afraid there isn't anything I can do."

Ed reached out, snatching the front of the man's shirt and half-dragging him across the counter. "Listen, asshole--"

He was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. "Brother, leave him alone. If they don't have any rooms, then there really isn't anything he can do."

With something that was half grumble and half growl, he released the bastard and turned to Al. "Well, what are we supposed to do? I'd forgotten about that stupid festival, we could drive around for hours and not find a place with a room."

"You can stay with me."

Both heads swung towards Mustang, who was waiting with their bags. Al blinked and then shook his head. "Oh no, we don't want to be an inconvenience. I'm sure we'll find something."

Roy snorted. "It isn't an inconvenience. I've got plenty of space. If you insist, we can see if we can find somewhere for you to stay tomorrow, but it's too late to worry about it tonight."

Alphonse looked at Ed, who shrugged. Didn't matter to him, and it would save them money in the end.

* * *

Daniel watched two shadowed figures moving behind the curtains and cursed his abominable luck. He didn't know why they had chosen to stay with the general over the hotel, but it was proving to make his plan more difficult. He had planned on capturing the brother as well, and while he was not vital to his plans, his presence would help. Unfortunately, he had no way of telling who the two individuals downstairs were. Edward might not even be among them. 

Still, he could not afford to wait. Daniel would simply have to take the chance and hope for the best. He fingered the two syringes in his pocket, checked to make sure that Benjamin was out of sight, and rapped on the door.

After a moment he heard the muffled sound of footsteps, and the door opened to reveal the general.

Not good.

Schooling his features into a slightly confused smile, he said, "Ah, is Kadie home?"

The general blinked at him and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong house."

Daniel frowned, glancing at the numbers beside the door. "I must have written it down wrong, I'm terribly sorry for disturbing you so late." He hesitated a moment, and then asked. "Could I ask to use your telephone? I swear I won't be a moment, but I really should call her."

He frowned, but sighed and nodded. "All right. Come on in." The general turned his back to Daniel, and lightning-fast, he wrenched the syringe from his pocket and plunged it into the other man's neck.

The sedative was strong and remarkably fast acting. Mustang only managed a strangled sound before he slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. Daniel scowled at the unconscious man as he stepped over him. He only had two syringes, and had been forced to waste one on the general.

Hurrying down the hall and around the corner, he came face to face with his prey, and had to struggle not to smile. "Oh, thank god!" He said, grabbing the startled young man's arm. "He opened the door, and he just...collapsed!" He fluttered in fake panic.

"What are you-- shit!" Edward saw the general's body slumped on the floor and dashed over, kneeling beside him and checking for a pulse. He completely forgot about Daniel in his alarm, and he came up behind the short alchemist unnoticed, calmly plunging the second syringe into his neck. The dosage set to work even faster on the smaller man than it had the general, and he slumped over without even a sound.

Stepping over them, Daniel waved Benjamin over. He didn't have the time to search the house for the brother, and he had no more of the sedative besides. It was too risky. In the end, he had gotten what he had come for, and that would have to be good enough.

Benjamin hefted Edward's dead weight at Daniel's direction, and he paused before directing him to take the general as well. Too messy to kill him, too dangerous to leave someone behind who had seen him. Best to take him, then. Perhaps he would find a use for the man.

Daniel allowed himself a small smile as Benjamin bound the hands and feet of the two men before stuffing them into the back of the rented van.

Everything was finally coming together.

* * *

The first thing Edward became aware of was the _noise._Barking, squawking and howling, a cacophony of sound that drummed through his skull and gave him the vague urge to scream. His head was thick, pounding, he couldn't seem to think and all the damn noise was not helping. 

The second thing he became aware of was that he was lying on something hard, cold, and smelling strongly of animal.

The third thing he became aware of was the touch of a hand on his hair.

The realization was enough to startle him out of his haze, at least a little, and he tried to move, but it was like trying to swim through molasses. His limbs were sluggish at best, leaden weights that left him flopping feebly instead of moving like they should. His automail didn't seem to want to move at all. What was _wrong_with him? The hand moved away while Edward fought with unresponsive limbs. "Ed?"

The voice was familiar, and Ed gave up struggling with his body for a moment in favor of cracking open his eyes. It was dark, and he could only make out the vague shape of a person leaning over him. Then it clicked. "Mustang?" he asked, and winced. Talking made the pain in his head worse.

"You're awake." Relief. The hand returned to his head. "You'll want to stay still, give the drug some time to wear off completely."

Drugs. That would explain why he felt like his head was stuffed with cotton. Cotton and angry little men stabbing his brain with sharp spikes. Yeah, being drugged would explain...wait. "You drugged me?" he shrieked, instantly regretting it when a particularly vicious little man with an exceptionally large spike attacked his brain with gusto. It also set the animals off, and Ed whimpered.

Mustang snorted. "I didn't drug you. Whoever kidnapped us did."

Ed frowned, trying to remember a kidnapping. The last thing he remembered was arguing with that prick at the hotel. After that, it was nothing but a fog. He swore. "Why the hell would someone kidnap us? "

"The usual reasons, probably. Ransom, blackmail. I can't say for sure, I haven't even seen our captors yet. I haven't been awake long myself." Ed heard the other man shift slightly. "They took your automail."

Well. That was fucking fantastic. No wonder his limbs didn't want to move, half of them weren't even there. It a moment for the implication to sink in. If they knew enough about him to take away his automail, then chances were good _he_was the one they'd been after. Of course, their captor could have simply taken it in order to cripple him. No way to be sure.

Ed frowned, something worrying at the edge of his consciousness. When it finally struck him, he sat bolt upright, ignoring the pain. "Al! What happened to Al?" Last he could remember, Al was with them.

"He isn't here," Roy assured him, helping Ed into a sitting position and leaning him against the bars for support.

Well, there was a bit of silver lining. If Al wasn't with them then chances were he was fine and looking for them.

"Do you know where we are?" He asked the other man, peering into the dark and wishing he could see more than vague shadows.

"A kennel of some sort, maybe a zoo." Ed heard Roy shift in the dark, sitting beside him. "I can only guess. I'm not even sure we're still in Central. There's no telling how long we've been out."

Ed lifted his arm experimentally, testing. Still a bit sluggish, but the effects of the drug were definitely wearing off. If the bastards that brought him here thought taking his arm would make a difference, they were sorely mistaken. "I'm going to need your help when we get out of here," he muttered, biting his finger sharply. Ignoring the pain, Ed squeezed the blood from the wound and began tracing an array on the floor. "Until we find my leg, at least."

"Ed, it won't--"

The crackle of alchemical energy cut him off, lighting the room in a brief and brilliant flash before it just...fizzled. Ed frowned at the floor, blinking away the spots dancing before his eyes. What the hell? He had never seen that kind of reaction before.

"-work." Roy finished. He sighed. "I think they have a Logan Array under the cage."

Edward swore, slumping back against the bars. The Logan Array was named for the man who had developed it, but it was more commonly known as the anti-array. An impressive bit of creative alchemy, the array was designed to disrupt and disperse any alchemical reactions from within the array itself. Ed had never seen one in action himself; they were most common in prisons to keep alchemist prisoners from transmuting their way to freedom. If they were sitting in the middle of an anti-array, it meant that any attempt to escape via alchemy was doomed to failure.

It also meant that at least one of their captors was a skilled alchemist.

The day was just getting better and better.

Light suddenly flooded the room and Ed squinted and tensed. He glanced at Roy and was startled to see a large, purple bruise marring the side of his face. He didn't have time to ask however, because the sound of footsteps drew near.

A moment later a tall, thin man wearing a white lab coat and glasses came into view. He couched down in front of the cage, resting his arms on his knees and peering through the bars. All Roy received was a disinterested glance before the man's gaze settled on Ed, and he_smiled, _the expression so full of hatred that it made his skin crawl.

"Ah, Edward Elric. I've waited a very long time to meet you."


	3. Chapter 2

:Chapter 2:

A loud ringing startled Jean from disjointed dreams and he shot upright, banging his knee on the table and staring around in bleary confusion. His back _ached _something fierce, and he decided that he was getting too damned old to go passing out at the kitchen table. A burnt out cigarette had singed a hole in the report he'd been reading before he had fallen asleep, and Jean shook his head at his own stupidity before shoving the scattered papers into a pile. Lucky he hadn't burned the building down. Or his hair. That was an incident he didn't care to repeat.

The doorbell rang a second time, reminding him of what had woken him up in the first place. A glance at the clock confirmed that it was indeed the middle of the goddamned night, and whoever was at his door wasn't going to live much longer. Grumbling and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he got to his feet and answered the door, fully intent on giving the interloper a good dressing down.

His ire evaporated and the words died on his lips. Standing on the threshold was Alphonse Elric, battered suitcase in hand. He seemed small and worn, the shadows around his eyes a good indication that the boy hadn't been sleeping well, if at all. "Hey there," Jean said gently, standing aside so the boy could enter.

Alphonse offered him a tiny smile as he moved past. "I'm sorry to trouble you, Lieutenant."

"Jean," he corrected automatically. "You don't have to apologize. You know you're always welcome here." Ever since his brother and the general had disappeared, Al had been haunting Central like a ghost. He refused to go back home, refused to stay with anyone for more than a few nights at a time. He was worried about the kid; Al was taking it worse than the rest of them put together.

Jean glanced around the messy apartment, shrugged inwardly, and waved the boy into the kitchen. If he was more awake he might have made a token attempt to pick up, but as it was Alphonse, he was going to have to put up with his mess. Not that he thought the kid was in any state to care, really. He snuck a sideways glance at Al as he put the kettle on for tea, and decided he didn't like what he saw. The more time that passed, the more the younger Elric seemed to shrink in on himself. Jean shook his head, swept a pile of old newspapers off of one of the chairs, and told Al to sit. It was a terrible thing to witness, and he didn't have any idea how to make it better.

Well, that was a lie, Jean mused, tossing his cigarettes into a drawer so he wouldn't be tempted to light up in front of Al. He knew exactly how to make it better, but finding his boss and the kid was easier said than done. He sat down across from Alphonse, watching as he reached out and took one of the reports from pile, expression darkening.

The report was an old one regarding the investigation of the premises after the disappearance. He'd been poring over the old reports before he'd conked out, hoping to find some clue that might have been overlooked. Alphonse sighed and set the report back on top of the stack. "If only I hadn't gone to sleep."

"Don't start," Jean warned, shaking his head sharply. "I'm not going to let you sit here and blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault, you hear?" It wasn't the fist time they'd gone round on the subject, but Al didn't argue this time. He merely nodded.

They fell silent, and a moment later the whistle of the kettle cut through the quiet and startled them both. Jean got to his feet and pulled two mugs from the cabinet, grateful he'd gotten around to washing the dishes at least. Alphonse was probably starving; chances were if he wasn't sleeping well, he wasn't eating well either, so Jean opened the ice box, rummaging around for something edible. He stumbled across the sandwich he had made for lunch but hadn't eaten, deemed it acceptable, and deposited both tea and sandwich in front of his guest.

Alphonse blinked at the offered fare a moment, before curling his fingers around the mug with a quiet 'Thank you'. Jean decided it was a good sign; a month ago Alphonse would have insisted he wasn't hungry.

"So," he said, slumping back into his chair. "What brings you to my humble home so late?"

Brows dipping in a puzzled frown, Alphonse looked at the clock as though he hadn't realized the hour. "I...was just in the area."

Meaning he was wandering the streets in the middle of the night. Alone. _Again. _Jean snorted quietly. It wasn't the first time they'd gone round on this particular subject either, but this time he let it go with a muttered, "You aren't invincible, you know."

Al accepted the reprimand with a bow of his head. Maybe that was a good sign too; the kid didn't look any better, but he seemed more willing to listen to reason. "Have you found anything new?" Alphonse asked.

Bringing them right back to the subject at hand. "I haven't," Jean said, unable to shake the feeling that he was failing Al somehow by not finding anything new in reports that had been read and reread a thousand times. They might as well have flown away for all the evidence they had left behind. No signs of forced entry, no witnesses, no evidence of a struggle. Just two men missing, and one who'd slept right through it.

It didn't help one damned bit that the military had made only a token effort at best to recover them. There were a few men in high places that wouldn't be sorry to see Mustang go, and Jean suspected they'd had a hand in the half-assed operation. Hell, he suspected that one of them might have had a hand in the disappearance as well, and had been doing his best to quietly investigate those most likely to have an irritant 'taken care of'. There were no leads on that front either, and Jean was ready to start tearing his hair out in sheer frustration.

The team had been reassigned a few weeks after the incident. They had been assured it was temporary until Mustang was found, but since they were conducting the investigation on their own time it made it nearly impossible to compare notes. Breda was the only one he saw with any sort of regularity since they worked in the same building. The others were scattered, working different places and different shifts. The final straw had been when they'd shunted Hawkeye out west two weeks ago. Jean had been ready to bust in to some idiot's office and start blasting off kneecaps. Hawkeye, while she shared his sentiment, had assured him that this was likely not the best course of action.

It was hard not to get discouraged, but looking at Alphonse --who seemed so _lost-- _stirred up reserves of determination he'd thought depleted weeks ago. Reaching out, he placed his larger hand over Al's and gave it a comforting squeeze. "We'll find them," he assured the boy, "If I have to tear this whole damned country apart building by building, we'll find them."

* * *

Marian sighed, taking a moment to rest against the side of a building. It was days like this she regretted her decision to move to the city. Just _living _was so tiring, and it made her yearn for blue sky and the wide-open spaces of her father's farm, for lazy days by the river. She smiled ironically, watching the flood of people bustling this way and that. These city folks probably hadn't had a lazy day in their lives. It didn't seem possible to slow down in this place.

When she told her father that she'd wanted to go to school in the big city, he'd laughed. Not in a cruel way; he just didn't believe she could handle the stresses of city life. Marian had been _so _determined to prove him wrong. She still was, but there were days when it was tempting to admit defeat and go back home with her tail between her legs.

She'd thought she was smart. Marian had more facts in her head than all of the other kids in their small community put together. She'd thought she would waltz into Central, take the university by storm. Instead, the place had taken her down a few pegs. More than a few if she wanted to be honest. It had quickly become clear that her backwater education hadn't prepared her for the rigors of university life. At home, she was brilliant; here, she was average at best. It seemed as though she was running and running without rest just to keep from falling behind.

Worse, her savings were nearly depleted. She had rent to pay, books to buy, and eating once in a while would be nice too. She'd have to find a job, and soon, if she didn't want to find herself out of the streets. The idea of adding a job to her already tremendous workload make her want to sit down and cry, but if she didn't want to drop out, it was her only option.

Pushing herself away from the wall, she smoothed the front of her dress. She was about to step away when a fluttering movement caught her eye. It was a poster, one among many papering the wall, but the contents made her look twice.

Was that...?

It was!

Stepping closer so she could read it, Marian frowned when she realized what she was looking at. It must be someone else. Something held her back however, and she scanned the print again. The timeframe was just about right though, wasn't it? Coincidence maybe? Then her eyes settled on the reward listed and her jaw dropped open. That would be enough to live on for a year! More, if she was careful. She studied the picture again, thoughtful. She was sure the young man on the poster wasn't the one she was thinking of, but perhaps they'd offer a smaller reward for any information, even if it turned out to be false. Carefully tearing the poster from the wall, she folded it and slipped it into her purse.

It couldn't hurt to try.

* * *

Chest constricting painfully, Roy bent over his knees and coughed, hard and chest-deep. The fit eventually passed and he laid his head on his knees, the pounding in his head intensified by the attack. He was fairly certain his illness was getting worse. Ignoring the pain in his head, he shifted, leaning back against the cold metal of the bars and put a hand to his cheek, trying to judge if the fever had worsened. His skin seemed hotter, but he couldn't be sure. He certainly _felt _worse, and it was getting bad enough that even Edward was worried.

Worried enough to try and play nursemaid, and Roy couldn't help but smile a bit at the irony. Ed was the one being tortured on a near daily basis, and he still insisted on fussing over what was probably just a flu.

Roy shifted, trying with little success to find a more comfortable position; an angle where steel bars didn't dig into his back quite so badly. Not for the first time since their imprisonment, he envied Ed for his short stature. What he wouldn't give to have enough room to lay out flat. Or to have a chance to get out of the cage and stretch his legs a little for that matter. It was remarkable how much one missed walking and standing after being prevented it for months on end.

Months. Had it been months? It was hard to tell without the benefit of the sun, and their captor's irregular habits didn't help any. Edward had a better grasp on the passage of time than he did; it had been two months now, he had said, maybe three. Roy tried not to think about the fact that with every day that passed without rescue, the chance of anyone finding them at all became less and less.

His eyes drifted to the plain wood of the laboratory door. Staring wouldn't bring Edward back any faster, but he'd been in there for hours now. It was the longest he'd ever been kept, and it was difficult not to worry. Roy forced his gaze away and turned his attention instead to the wolf caged across the way. It was their captor's newest acquisition, and the man had been borderline excited when they'd brought the animal in, a strange thing to see in the usually sober man. Roy couldn't say what the bastard did with the animals --whenever they went into the lab they never came back out-- but it was undoubtedly unpleasant.

The wolf was always listless, never doing much more than laying quietly, and Roy thought they must be tranquilizing the creature. He couldn't imagine him being so placid otherwise. He felt a brief surge of sympathy for the animal; chances were good it would vanish into the lab like the others before long.

Roy wondered if Ed would vanish this time, and forced the thought away. That kind of thinking wouldn't do him a bit of good.

It was at least another hour before the door to the lab finally clicked open. The bastard emerged looking smug, followed by Bear cradling a half-conscious Edward in his arms. Roy's heart sank on seeing him; it was worse than usual today if Ed couldn't even muster the energy to sling tired insults at their captor. The cage was unlocked, and Bear gently passed Edward to Roy, the younger alchemist almost dead weight.

The cage was closed and locked, their captor crouching down to observe, but Roy paid him no mind. Edward was in a bad state. He never looked good when the bastard was finished with him, but this was worse than usual. His eyes drifted back and forth aimlessly, glazed and unfocused. His breathing was shallow, muscles twitched and spasmed, and there were several new puncture wounds standing out starkly against too-pale skin.

Flooded with worry, Roy retrieved the shirt he'd given Ed, the once white cloth filthy and grey. Careful not to jostle him too much, Roy leaned Edward against his shoulder, gently working his one arm into the sleeve before shifting him around so he could fasten the buttons. That done, he snatched up the blanket and wound it around Ed as best he could. His skin was cold to the touch and Roy settled Ed against his side, wrapping an arm around him in an effort to impart some warmth. His fever should be good for that at least.

The bastard merely watched through all of this, making thoughtful sounds, the noises grating on Roy's already frayed nerves. His irritation got the best of his resolve to ignore the man and he snapped, "What!?"

Their captor blinked at him, then smiled enigmatically. "He's ready," he announced.

Roy watched him leave with a sinking feeling, holding Edward a little tighter as though he could protect him. He wasn't sure what it meant, but it was doubtlessly a bad thing.

The light clicked off and silence settled over them. Silence wasn't a good idea when Ed was like this; they'd learned early that whatever he was injected with made him prone to hallucinations. Talking seemed to give him something to focus on, something to ground him, and so Roy latched onto the last thing they had spoken of --Edward's childhood-- and began to speak of his own. There wasn't much of interest to say, but the words were more important than the topic, and so Roy kept talking.

Roy spoke of growing up in the east, of his parents, learning alchemy, and playing pranks on his sister. He wasn't sure how long he'd been talking for when Ed suddenly rasped, "I didn't know you had a sister."

Roy started, looking down at the young man resting in the crook of his arm. He could just barely make out the shadowy outline of Edward's head. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like shit," Ed said, "Keep talking. Keeps my mind off it."

Roy nodded peaceably and backtracked his thoughts a little. "Her name is Samantha, and she's twelve years older than I am. Last I heard, she was working as a veterinarian for the Central Zoo. We...well, we haven't spoken since I was younger than you are."

Edward shifted slightly. "Why not?"

Remembering their last big blowout was still uncomfortable, even after all these years. She'd been so _angry _with him. Angry enough to cut him out her life completely. "Sam had very strong opinions about the military. In spite of that, I enlisted as soon as I was old enough. She was furious, and once she realized she couldn't talk me out of it, she left. We haven't spoken since."

"But she's your _sister._" Ed sounded totally bewildered that anyone would willfully cut off contact with a sibling.

Roy smiled inwardly and resisted the urge to give him a pat on the head. "I know, Ed. I think it's probably just better to let it lie."

Ed made a doubtful sound. "Do you even know how to find her?"

He'd gotten a phone call from his mother a few years ago begging him to reconcile with his sister. He'd promised to think about, but he never had. "My mother gave me her address a few years ago."

"Hm." They lapsed into silence.

"When we get out of here, you should look her up," Ed said suddenly.

Roy marveled that Ed could still talk of escape as though it was inevitable. He shook his head. "It's been seventeen years, Ed. She hasn't tried to contact me once. I don't think she wants to see me."

Ed snorted. "Have _you_ tried to contact _her_?"

He thought of his mother. "Well...no."

"But that doesn't mean you don't want to see her, does it?" Ed didn't wait for an answer. "The problem with letting something like that go so long is that the longer you wait to fix things, the easier it gets to just...not do it. Family is important, Mustang. In the end, they're all you got, and you shouldn't give up just because it's too hard and too awkward to make the first move."

Roy had to admit that Ed had a point. It wouldn't hurt anything besides his pride to make the first gesture. If Sam still didn't want anything to do with him, well, he could always say he'd tried. "Maybe. We'll see."

A heavy sigh informed Roy that Ed clearly thought he was an idiot, and he felt a warm rush of affection for the younger alchemist. "Get some sleep. You need it." All he received was a grumble in reply, but Ed shifted closer, resting his head on Roy's shoulder.

* * *

Alphonse lifted the lid of the pot, giving the sauce a stir before tasting it. Perfect. He replaced the lid and lowered the heat, wiping his hands on the towel tucked into his belt. A glance at the clock confirmed that dinner should be ready just after Jean got home. It wasn't anything special; a pasta dish with garlic bread, but investigation of the other man's icebox earlier had revealed that Jean apparently lived on a diet of take out and cigarettes. Al thought he might appreciate a home cooked meal, and really, it was the least he could do under the circumstances.

The lieutenant had left that morning only after extracting a promise that Al would be there upon his return. He sighed at the memory, shaking his head. He knew he was causing the others a great deal of worry even though that was not his intention, and he had agreed, but it had left him at something of loose ends. He couldn't help but feel a little useless, sitting in Jean's apartment doing nothing productive.

So he'd cleaned. The lieutenant was a lousy housekeeper, and Alphonse thought he might like coming home to a clean house, and it kept him busy. What started as a bit of picking up turned into full-blown scrubbing. He'd cleaned the small apartment from top to bottom, done the laundry, washed the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, and when that was done he'd gone to market to fill out the bare pantry a bit.

In spite of the fact that he'd been so wrapped up in his personal misery the last couple of months, he appreciated that there were others trying to look out for him, even when he didn't make it easy to do. While the idea of sitting around doing nothing made him want to scream, it was time to accept that the military had more resources than he did. Alphonse had already exhausted all avenues available to him, and he had nothing to show for it. He wanted desperately to find his brother, but wearing himself into the ground wasn't going to help anyone, least of all Ed.

He heard the door open. "Hey--" Jean cut off suddenly, and Alphonse poked his head out of to kitchen to see the man staring around in amazement. Jean stepped back into the hallway, eyeing the number beside his door as though to verify he was in the right place. He came inside and closed the door. "You do all this?" he asked, though it couldn't have been anyone else.

Alphonse had been so focused on keeping himself busy that he hadn't stop to consider how incredibly presumptuous it was to go cleaning up someone else's home. He ducked his head, feeling like an idiot. "I'm sorry, I was just trying--"

"Sorry?" Jean clapped him on the shoulder. "Are you kidding? I think this is the cleanest the place has been since I moved in." His eyes roved the room once more and he grinned. "In fact, I think it might actually be cleaner than it was when I moved in. And," he poked his head into the kitchen with an exaggerated sniff, "Is that food I smell?" He looked back at Al in delight and said, "You're amazing. Can I keep you?"

Alphonse could feel himself turning a very unflattering shade of red and he ducked his head in embarrassment. "I just wanted to help out," he mumbled, moving past Jean into the kitchen. The noodles were done and needed to be drained. The phone rang, sparing him from further embarrassment when the lieutenant vanished into the other room to answer it.

"What!?" Alphonse started at the unexpected screech, nearly dropping the pot of noodles on his foot. "You're sure?" Havoc said, a slight edge of hysteria to his voice. "You're _sure?_" A pause. "Well, fuck me. Hold on a second."

Alphonse set the pot down just as Jean came skidding into the kitchen, snatching his wrist and dragging him into the living room. Al stared at him, completely baffled, and Jean pushed him towards his bedroom door. "Go pick up the phone in there," he said, "You need to hear this."

Alphonse complied, his stomach twisting in confused knots. He picked up the receiver, wondering if this had something to do with his brother. It had to, didn't it? Why else would the lieutenant want him to listen? He could still see the other man in the living room and held his breath when Jean picked up the phone again. "I'm back. Repeat that again for me."

A voice Alphonse recognized as belonging to Breda answered_, "You deaf or what_?" he snorted_. "I said we've got what looks to be a solid tip on Edward's location. We don't know if the general is with him or not, the girl hadn't seen him, but I'd say it's a damned good chance."_

For a moment, Alphonse forgot to breathe. He caught Jean's eye and the other man asked, "How do we know this is the real deal? We've gotten plenty of bogus tips so far."

"_That's just it,"_ Breda replied, _"The brass is taking this seriously. The girl fingered some guy named--" _The rustle of paper could be heard. _"--Markham. Daniel Markham. Guy lives in some nowheresville farming community up north, but that isn't the interesting part. We've got a file on this guy."_

"Criminal?"

"_Nah, personnel. This guy worked for the military until a few years ago, but that's all I can tell you. Anything regarding this guy is beyond classified. This shit is so far above our heads I shouldn't even know his name, but I'm the one who processed the girl's tip. Now, I've never heard of the guy, from Mustang or otherwise, but the brass seems to think there's a good chance Markham nabbed him, but they aren't saying why. Ed was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time."_

The wrong place at the wrong time. That had been the theory, that Mustang was the target and his brother was just collateral damage, but it was hard to hear it confirmed. Jean propped the phone between his shoulder and his ear and settled on the arm of the couch. "So what are they going to do?"

"_They're going to mount a rescue operation in four days. Two to prepare, and two for travel time. I managed to talk Keats into assigning you to lead the team since the investigation is, technically, still yours."_

Jean laughed, and the sound was a little unsteady. "I could kiss you right now."

"_Thanks for the sentiment, but I think I'll pass. There's a briefing tomorrow oh-eight hundred, make sure your ass is there."_

"I will. Thanks, man."

"_You can thank me by bringing them home safe."_


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: Another chapter in less than a week! I'm on a roll, baybee!

:Chapter 3:

Edward resisted the urge to scratch at the puncture wounds on his arm. They always itched like crazy the day after the injections. He hated those fucking injections. Needles were bad enough, but that bastard was pumping him full of some sort of drug, and Ed didn't have a damned idea what it was. It left him feeling weak and ill, sick to his stomach more often than not, and then there were the hallucinations. He winced at the thought.

Talking helped. Stopped his mind from going all skittery and strange, pushed back the paranoia that often accompanied the injections. Edward hated the loss of control that came with the drug. Hated the way everything seemed to ghost and warp. He'd thought for a long time that the injections were an end unto themselves, but he was beginning to have his doubts. He didn't know what purpose they might serve beyond making him feel like certified shit, but that rat-bastard had hinted at a greater purpose.

Maybe the hallucinations were just a hint of things to come. Maybe, if enough of the drug was pumped into his veins he'd just go crazy; a long, endless stream of warped images and strange sounds. Maybe, next time it started, it'd never go away.

Edward shuddered and shook his head hard. He was letting his imagination get the better of him. The possibility was there, but working himself into a panic over something that might or might not happen was just plain stupid. It was hard to keep his spirits up living in a cramped little box with nothing to look forward to but more suffering. The whole mess seemed to weigh on him a little more every day, but he had to try and keep some kind of positive outlook. If not for his own sake, then for Roy's. Roy had enough to worry about without dealing with Ed's issues too.

The man in question had been drifting in and out of fitful sleep for hours. His breathing was loud and wet, and when Ed touched him, Roy's skin was burning with fever. When he was awake, Roy tried to downplay his illness, hide his symptoms, but Ed knew better. In his own head at least, he could admit that he was worried. Scared sick was more like it. He couldn't help but think of his mother; the sickness might be different, but the end result might be the same. Outside, with access to medical treatment, Roy probably would have been fine. But locked in a filthy cage in a damp, cold basement? With no access to medicine or proper care? The possibility that Roy would die and leave him to endure it all alone was almost more than he could bear.

Roy coughed, the sound of it making Edward's stomach clench. "Ed?" Roy called quietly when the fit passed, his voice hoarse.

Ed scooted a little closer. "Yeah?"

"Would you mind getting me some water?" He sounded like he needed it.

"Yeah, sure," Ed said, dragging himself to the corner where the water tank sat. At least they always had water, he mused, picking up the plastic cup and filling it. Of course they would, though. Glasses might be batshit insane, but he wanted them alive for the time being. He returned to Roy, passing over the cup. Ed had tried to avoid drinking much in the beginning. There was no privacy for bodily functions, and it had taken him a long while to get over the humiliation of having to use the toilet --or pan, in their case-- with an audience. Roy always turned his back to offer Ed the most privacy he could, but it was still beyond humiliating in the beginning.

These days, he really didn't give a shit if Roy watched him take a piss or not; months in captivity did wonders for rearranging a man's priorities.

Roy gulped down the water quickly, finishing with a sigh and passing the cup back to Ed, who returned it to its place beside the tank. "Thank you," Roy said, and Ed grunted in reply. He picked up the blanket Roy had discarded in his thrashing and tossed it at the older man.

"Get some sleep, you need the rest," Ed said, trying not to sound as concerned as he felt. He didn't think he succeeded.

"Yes, sir," Roy replied, a hint of humor in the words, and just as he began to settle down the light flared on, startling them both. They exchanged a curious glance; Glasses usually didn't return so quickly after one of Edward's sessions. He shrugged at Roy. It probably didn't have anything to do with him, but rather one of the other experiments.

He was proven wrong, however, when Glasses came straight to their cage, Bear following obediently behind. Their captor motioned for the large man to open the cage and Ed felt a surge of alarm even as he shrugged out of the shirt. He couldn't mean to have another session again so soon, could he? Roy was evidently thinking the same thing, and he frowned as they went through the familiar routine.

Bear directed him towards the lab, and Ed had to resist the urge to struggle. Bear, well, he wasn't such a bad guy, and Ed didn't like giving him trouble. The big man might be simple, but he was gentle, and Edward suspected that Bear might be as much a victim as they, though he couldn't say for certain.

The door was closed, and Ed was strapped to the cold table just like always. He scowled, angry that he'd barely been given any time to recover. "Couldn't wait to start fucking with me again, asshole?" At least it wouldn't be the injections, those were fairly regular. It would just be pain, and the pain always went away.

Glasses was unperturbed by his language. But then, Ed never could seem to get a rise out of him, which was why he was so startled when the man replied in a clipped, professional tone. "Oh, no, nothing of the sort today. There will be no more injections you'll be pleased to hear; you've had enough. Today…" He moved beyond Edward's sight, and when he returned, Ed couldn't help but gape. The bastard was holding Ed's leg. "I'm going to return your leg."

Ed wasn't quite sure what to say to that, and so he said nothing at all.

Glasses either didn't notice the lack of response or didn't care, setting the leg out of sight on his worktable. "I've been doing a bit of reading, you see, and I learned something interesting. Empty automail ports are very prone to infection. The injections would have prevented any infection before now, but now that you will no longer be receiving them, I need to take extra precautions to ensure your health. We can't have you getting an infection, after all. No, that would put us days, weeks behind schedule."

He returned to the table carrying what appeared to be medical implements of some kind. Ed could see gauze and bandages, a jar of some clear fluid, and few other things he did not recognize. Ed wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but he was beyond startled when the man began to clean the port on his leg. The smell of antiseptic quickly filled the small room when he opened the jar, and Edward could only watch in baffled amazement as the man cleaned out his leg port first with a damp cloth, and then with the antiseptic gel. He wasn't gentle but neither was he unnecessarily rough, and after a while Edward relaxed a little. It was incongruous with his other experiences in this room, but he certainly wasn't going to argue if the man was giving him back his leg.

After the cleaning, Glasses retrieved something that looked much like the concoction Winry used to prevent rust, and spread a generous amount into the port. He examined his work carefully for a few moments, making thoughtful sounds to himself. Then, without warning he grabbed Ed's leg and slammed it into the port.

Edward screamed, he couldn't help it. The agony of the sudden attachment to a port that hadn't seen automail in months was intense, lancing through him in blinding streaks. He wasn't sure how much time had passed before the excruciating pain began to ebb, becoming something tolerable. Ed sucked in gasping breaths, staring at the yellow bulb of the light above him. He wasn't looking forward to repeating the process with his arm in the future.

Edward realized that while he had been blinded by pain, the bastard had moved on to his arm and was now cleaning that port as well. Ed stared in confusion around the painful churning in his head. Surely the man wouldn't give Edward his arm back? That would be stupid. Not to mention suicidal.

But no, once the port was clean, it was covered in gauze and carefully bandaged. It took him a long moment to realize this was probably to keep it from getting dirty again, and he laughed a little. The bastard taking care of him like this was absolutely absurd. He must really want him in decent condition for...whatever it was he was planning. He'd even been giving them more food lately, and Ed couldn't quite bring himself to care that he was being fattened for the slaughter, so to speak.

A few more minutes passed, and he could hear Glasses clanking around, messing with whatever it was he kept in his lap. Best he could tell from the little he'd seen, it was an eclectic collection of supplies related to alchemy and other sciences with which Ed was less familiar. Finally, he returned, unstrapped Ed from the table, and had Bear return him to his cage.

Edward had the very distinct impression that time was running out.

* * *

"Take me with you."

Jean shook his head, purposely avoiding eye contact. He had hoped, somewhat foolishly, to avoid having this confrontation, but it looked like there was no way out of it now. "I can't."

Alphonse made a strange noise, and Jean finally met his eyes and inwardly applauded himself on resisting the urge to cringe. Al was not pleased, to say the very least. In fact, unless he missed his guess, Al was a hairsbreadth from ripping off his testicles and feeding them to him. Jean didn't quite manage to suppress the wince at that image. "You're the leader of the team, aren't you?"

"Well, yes," Jean said, wishing briefly that Al had a better understanding of military procedure. Taking a civilian on a potentially dangerous operation was beyond stupid, and Keats would have his hide for it. Not to mention Jean didn't want to risk Alphonse getting hurt. "Keats would nail my ass to the wall if he found out I took a civilian with me. Besides," he added, "I don't want you getting hurt."

Alphonse bristled, and Jean realized that perhaps that wasn't the right thing to say. "Not that I don't think you can take care of yourself," he hastened to assure the angry young man. "Shit, I'd be the first to admit that you could wipe the floor with me ten times over." He sighed, fingers twitching with the need to light up. "But if I let you come I'll be the one who takes the heat for it, and honestly, if something did happen to you I'd never be able to forgive myself."

The admission seemed to mollify Alphonse somewhat. He sighed heavily. "You can't expect me to just sit here and wait while you go rescue my brother, do you?"

Jean shrugged, feeling a little helpless. "It's out of my hands, kid. Breda isn't going, neither is Fuery or Falman, and how d'you suppose Hawkeye feels, being stuck halfway across the country?"

Al blinked, as though he hadn't thought of that. Jean couldn't blame him for being single-minded though, not about this. "I...suppose," he said unhappily.

"Hey," Jean said, and when Al looked up at him, he reached out on impulse and gave the kid a rough hug. "I know waiting sucks, but if they're there, I promise to bring them back in one piece. It's only a few extra days, and Breda knows to reach you here as soon as we have news."

"I'm sorry," Al said, the words muffled as he leaned in Jean's shoulder.

"What for?" Jean asked, looking down at the top of his head. The kid was taller than Ed, he noted absently, but he probably wasn't going to do much more growing.

"For being a brat," Al said. He sounded dejected, and Jean gave him another quick squeeze before he realized he should release him.

"You're not a brat," Jean said, then added with a smile, "I think the chief has that market cornered in your gene pool. You're just worried about him; I understand that."

Alphonse sank down onto the couch and looked up at him dolefully. Jean counted himself lucky that Al hadn't used the expression when asking to go; he wasn't sure he could have said no to it. "I'm lucky you put up with me."

Jean shook his head with a smile. "If you keep feeding me like you have been, you'll be lucky to escape."

That startled a laugh out of Alphonse, and Jean smiled inwardly, pleased. He glanced at the clock. Unfortunately, unless he wanted to miss the train, he had to go. It would reflect poorly on him if he showed up late, and the last thing he wanted to do was give General Keats an excuse to remove him from the team. "I've got to get going," he said, and Al nodded.

"I'm counting on you." The words were so soft Jean almost didn't catch them.

He collected his coat and opened the door. "Then I'll have to make sure not to disappoint you," he said before ducking out into the hallway and closing the door behind him.

He shrugged into his coat. Truth be told, he was a little worried that was exactly what would happen. In spite of the fact that this had the feel of the real thing, if it turned out Edward and the general _weren't _where the girl had said...well, he didn't want to come back empty handed. He didn't think he could stand to see the bitter disappointment in Al's eyes.

Jean went outside, leaning against the hood of the car. He pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and put one between his lips. A bit of fumbling produced his lighter, and he lit the cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled with a deep sigh. God, he'd needed that. He was feeling so rattled that he'd been tempted to light up in front of Al, even though the kid hated it. He'd never asked Jean not to smoke around him, but Jean tended to feel guilty if he did.

He took another drag before he unlocked the door to the car, sliding into the driver's seat. He tapped his thumb on the wheel for a moment before starting the engine. No sense in worrying overmuch, he decided as he pulled out onto the road. For now, he would only focus on the chance that they _were _there, and on what it would take to bring them back.

The drive to the station wasn't a long one, and Jean arrived with plenty of time to spare. The train was still being loaded, and most of the men who had been selected for the rescue were milling around on the platform. He spotted Keats to the side, talking to a few of the men. When the general saw Jean, he waved the men away and walked over. Jean made a note to keep on eye on the two of them; he didn't trust Keats as far as he could throw him and that mistrust extended to his men.

Jean saluted crisply. No sense in giving the man a reason to chuck him. "First Lieutenant," the general acknowledged, looking away for a moment to watch the men load the train. "We want Markham alive, Havoc."

Jean stared at Keats, the screech of the train drowning out all sound briefly. The man had to be kidding him. All he managed to get out was a disbelieving, "What?"

"I said I want Markham alive, First Lieutenant," Keats barked, "Your first priority is to bring him back alive and preferably in good condition, is that understood?"

Jean resisted the urge to scowl, but only barely. "I thought my first priority was to get the general out safely."

Keats stared at him, and Jean knew without a doubt that the man didn't give two shits about Mustang. "Of course it is," the bastard agreed, lying through his goddamn teeth, "But Markham's retrieval is still a high priority."

"Yes, sir," Jean said, saluting stiffly.

Keats returned the salute and walked away.

Jean growled to himself as he got on the train. He didn't care what Keats said, didn't care if they wanted Markham in custody. If they could retrieve him alive easily, then they would. If the bastard put up a fight, Jean would have no qualms putting a bullet in his brain and Keats be damned.

* * *

Roy was jerked from sleep by another fit of coughing. He curled onto his side and waited for the fit to pass, lungs and chest aching, the violent coughing renewing the throbbing in his head. He was very, very ready for this illness to go away. He rolled back on his back with a groan, knees resting against the bars.

A moment later Edward slipped beneath the blanket that Roy was certain he hadn't had when he'd gone to sleep, curling against his side and tucking his head under Roy's chin. He rubbed at Ed's arm, alarmed by how cold he was. "You're freezing," he said.

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one trying to cough up a lung," Ed snapped, the air practically vibrating with his worry. "You need to keep warm more than I do."

Edward's fear of Roy's illness was becoming more pronounced every day, and Roy wished fervently he could hide it to spare him that. He touched Edward's hair, gentle. "I'm not going to die, Ed."

The body beside his stiffened. "Who said I was worried?" Ed demanded, but the words lacked any sort of conviction, and after a moment Ed curled closer. It was probably a bad idea, being so close. He didn't want Ed catching whatever it was he had, after all. However, good idea or not, Roy preferred the comfort of Ed resting against him to laying alone, and he said nothing.

It wasn't long before Edward's breathing began to even out, and Roy was relieved. Ed wasn't sleeping enough. The drug that their captor was injecting him with often led to bizarre nightmares, and while he couldn't blame Ed for trying to escape them, he wasn't doing himself any good by depriving himself of rest.

An hour passed, maybe two, and the lights came on. Roy blinked against the sudden brightness, and Edward started upright, blinking around in bleary confusion.

It seemed a bit early too Roy's mind for their captor to make his appearance, but he couldn't be sure. Glasses appeared, practically bounding down the stairs and looking downright_ cheerful. _Roy doubted it was a good sign, and that feeling was only reinforced by what happened next.

Glasses crouched in front of the cage. "Good morning Edward, General," he crooned, ignoring Roy as he always did in favor of Ed. "Did you sleep well?" The man asked, "I do hope so. You'll need your strength today; it would be a shame if you died." Edward froze, eyes darting to Roy for a brief moment. Roy wished there was some way to reassure him; but it would have been false. The man's words could only bode ill.

"The problem with this procedure," Glasses continued, oblivious to their reactions, "Is that the fatality rate is very high. You will die eventually, of course, but you have not yet suffered enough. Not nearly enough." He pulled the gun from his pocket and trained it calmly on Roy, but Roy ignored it. He was used to it by now.

Today was the day their captor intended to do whatever it was he had planned, that much was clear. It was also clear that they needed to get Edward out, now, before the man inflicted some kind of permanent harm on him. But what could they do? Roy reached out and captured Edward's arm as he passed, mouthing _run _at him when gold eyes focused on his. It wasn't a good plan, nor one with much likelihood of success. Their captor would almost certainly shoot Roy and while he certainly had no death wish, if Edward got out, then it was worth it. The man wanted Ed alive, and Roy was banking on the fact that the bastard wouldn't shoot Ed.

Edward merely scowled at him. He looked like he had several choice words for Roy at the suggestion, but all he did was mutter, "Keep warm," before passing out of the cage and into Bear's grip.

Roy watched helplessly as the cage was once again closed and locked. Glasses stood, easily avoiding a kick from Edward and clucked reprovingly. "You should be conserving your strength," he informed the short alchemist, and then he smiled, the sight a chilling one. "You'll need it."

Edward paled as he was ushered into the lab, shooting Roy one last terrified look before the door swung shut between them.

Roy leaned his head against the bars and swore. Idiot, he should have run when he'd had the chance. He knew the reason Ed hadn't was because of him, and Roy supposed he couldn't blame Ed for not wanting to be the reason Roy got shot, but it was frustrating regardless. Every so often he could see the flash of alchemy beneath the door, and it made him twitch involuntarily every time. This was the first time alchemy had been involved, and that did not bode well.

Worse, less than a half an hour had passed before Bear returned. He unlocked the wolf's cage, hefting the large animal in his arms. The creature hung limp, almost dead weight, though it did muster the energy to raise its head and growl weakly at Bear as he returned to the lab.

Roy's gut churned at the implications.

It didn't take long. A hour, perhaps more, and Edward _screamed. _The sound was terrible, joined shortly by the pained howl of an animal, and it was worse than anything Roy had heard come from the lab before. It was a terrible, soul wrenching sound, and Roy pressed himself into the bars as through he could somehow melt through them and run to Edward's aid.

The screaming stopped, but only briefly, when it began again there was only the animal cry of rage and pain, and Roy went cold. He refused to acknowledge what it might mean, and maintained his vigil at the bars, staring hard at the door as if force of will alone could splinter it.

When silence fell, it was almost worse then the screaming, and Roy desperately wished for enough space to pace. As it was, the nervous tension was eating him alive. When the door opened, he startled and then leaned into the bars, desperate for some glimpse. Glasses emerged looking incredibly pleased, and Roy spared a thought that he'd kill the man with his bare hands given half a chance, before his mind was once again consumed by worry.

A moment later Bear emerged cradling a limp and unmoving Edward in his arms. For a terrified moment, Roy feared he was dead, but no; his chest was moving with his breath, just barely. Unconscious then. Even Bear appeared troubled as the cage was opened and Edward was passed into Roy's care with painstaking gentleness. The door was closed and locked, the bastard crouching down to observe as usual.

At first glance, Edward appeared physically intact. No cuts, no bleeding, no broken bones, and most thankfully of all, none of the animal features that would have confirmed his fears. But as Roy began to calm, he realized that something about Ed wasn't quite right. There was a peculiar black mark on his shoulder. Carefully turning him over, Roy didn't bother to stifle his gasp at what he saw.

Black spots and marks of various sizes covered his back in an almost tattoo-like pattern. Along his spine and on his shoulders and thighs, vanishing up his scalp under his hair. The pattern was familiar, and it took Roy's tired brain a moment to figure out where he had seen it before. The wolf. The wolf had the same black patterns across its back, he was sure of it. He hadn't paid it much mind at the time, and his stomach twisted with the ramifications.

Slowly, carefully, feeling a little numb, Roy began to carefully check Edward over, searching for inhuman traits, for anything out of place. His body seemed normal as far as he could see, but Roy was no doctor. The other signs he found were telling enough. Long, sharp incisors had replaced normal, seeming too large in his mouth. And his eyes. When Roy pried them open, they were no longer the accustomed shade of molten gold, but a feral, distinctly inhuman sort of yellow.

Chimera, then, Roy confirmed with a bone deep sort of weariness that almost made him want to cry. He had suspected as much, but he'd hoped otherwise. The outward physical changes were few and minor as far as Roy could discern, but there was no telling how his mind had suffered. There had been rumors before Bradley's death that the military had perfected the art of human chimera; that there were methods that would leave the mind wholly intact, or nearly so. It was foolish to hope this was the case with Edward. After all, what worse fate could there be for a man who prided himself on his wit and his intellect than to have those things stolen from him and be left with the mind of an animal?

Roy tried to wake him, feeling increasingly desperate when Edward didn't respond. The fear that Edward might have been broken beyond repair gripped him, but the small alchemist refused to awaken and reassure him. Eventually, he gave up and settled on making Ed as comfortable as possible. He would wake up eventually.

All Roy could do was wait, and hope.


	5. Chapter 4

:Chapter 4:

_There was nothing but darkness, an impenetrable black in every direction. It wasn't an ominous sort of darkness; it was quite peaceful in a peculiar sort of way, and so Edward was content with it. Here there was no time, no matter, nothing at all, and so he was vaguely startled when a shape emerged from the darkness._

_It was a wolf, gray and black and peering at him with yellow eyes that seemed to glow. Edward thought he should probably be alarmed, but he couldn't muster the energy to care, and so continued to watch placidly as the creature approached. It came within a few feet and then sat back on its haunches, cocking its head and regarding him with an intelligent stare. Edward blinked--_

_--and became the wolf, staring up at the human who watched in mild curiosity. They regarded each other for a long moment, and the more time passed the more the line between man and beast blurred, coming together in double vision as he regarded himself from two sets of eyes._

_Between one heartbeat and the next, they vanished, and Edward stared down at a body he could not see and wondered who he was._

Awareness came to him slowly, as though he were clawing his way up through a thick, heavy fog that kept dragging him back down. Slowly, slowly, the fog retreated, and he became aware of his body, a dull throbbing pain that hurt everywhere, spiking in time with his breathing. He became aware of the cold, hard floor beneath him, the stink of too many animals in too small a space, the touch of another living creature.

A rumbling growl became a snarl as he leaped up and away from the other creature. Too slow in a body that felt all wrong; he stumbled, falling against cold bars, muscles screaming agony. The creature moved toward him and he growled a warning. He was weak, too weak to fight and he couldn't help the relief when the creature stopped, drew back.

Gaze darting around the small space, he searched for an escape and found none. A sound, and he tensed, crouching down as best he could and rumbling another warning. The animal was not prey, but neither was it predator. He did not drop his guard. Not-predator was less dangerous, but less danger was not none at all. He dared to look away, to peer between the bars into the dark beyond; there seemed no escape from this trap.

"Edward."

His head snapped back to the other animal, but something...something seemed familiar. Slowly, cautiously he stretched a little, scenting the air between them. The other creature smelled of anxiety, almost overwhelmed by the stink of illness. Beyond that, the scent of the animal was strangely familiar, yet he could not place it. Something told him there was no danger in that scent, and he relaxed slightly, confused.

The scent brought with it a plethora of images, starting and stopping in no coherent pattern; a scattered slideshow of places and faces he felt he should recognize. Try as he might, he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of it all, and then the images were gone, chased away by a wind-but-not that settled inside him. It was cool and placid, soothing away the startled fear and confusion.

Pack, it asserted.

The other creature hadn't moved, and so he allowed his attention to shift instead to the curious wind. It made no sound, spoke no words and yet somehow still seemed...confident.

The scent was familiar because it was the scent of a pack mate. The knowledge came to him suddenly, and he knew in a distant sort of way that it came from the wind. It seemed to have a much better grasp of the situation, so he yielded to it.

It was an almost physical jolt, and then the wind was gone and he wondered briefly if they had ever been separate. He dismissed the thought as inconsequential and sat back to study his pack mate, no longer concerned now that he had been identified. It was a peculiar thing, he mused, studying the creature. This male was most certainly pack. He was also undeniably human, and that was strange. Humans were the reason he was here; stealing him away from his pack and his home, putting him into a tiny box and giving him food that made his head all wrong. There had never been any humans in his pack before, and he could not quite remember when that had changed.

He peered down curiously. That was another matter. Had he always been male? His memories could not seem to form any sort of agreement on the matter and he let it drop. It made very little difference, really.

"Edward, please." The strain in those words drew his attention back to his pack mate. Now that he was paying attention, he was troubled by the smell of anxiety and illness on the other male. He lurched forward and stumbled, growling at unresponsive limbs. Nothing seemed to be working the way it should. After a moment he managed a limping gait and shuffled over to his pack mate.

Limbs trembling from the small exertion, he half collapsed against the other. He had meant to offer some sort of comfort, but he hurt badly and he was so _tired, _and instead curled up beside his pack mate with a heavy sigh. A touch on his head, and he made a sleepy, pleased sound.

"Ed? Say something, please. Let me know that you're still in there." The anxiety was still there, sharp and pronounced.

All he could manage was a weak nudge at the leg his head was resting on before sleep claimed him.

* * *

He awoke disoriented, flailing weakly and promptly stilled at a touch on his head. He peered up at his pack mate, breathing heavily, and could not quite remember what had startled him from sleep.

"Ed?"

The other male kept making that sound, and something told him it should mean something to him. Ed. He turned the sound around in his head a few times. Ed. He frowned. Edward. It tickled at the edge of his consciousness. Edward.

A name. _His _name. The realization triggered a flood of memory, a pained sound escaping him at the onslaught. He couldn't quite seem to hold on to any of them; it was like trying to catch water in his hands. He clung to his name in the midst of it all, a raft in the storm. He was Edward Elric. That was important. It had to be remembered.

Eventually the flood slowed and stopped, but when he examined the aftermath, none of it seemed to make any sense. His head throbbed fiercely, and with a pained sigh he pried open his eyes and met the worried gaze of the other male.

Roy.

He snatched at the knowledge, drawing it close to him. He was Edward, and that was Roy. With slow, steadfast determination he plucked bits of himself from the wreckage of the flood and held on tightly. It was by no means everything, but enough to restore a little of his sense of self; something that had been buried deeply beneath the alien mind that was now a part of his.

With a growing sense of horror, Ed realized what had been done to him.

It was hard to keep his thoughts in any sort of order, alien impulses and instincts battering the tattered remains of his sanity like a sail in a storm. He was tired, and it was so hard to keep his head above the roiling sea of strangeness that now occupied his mind. Edward wanted to talk, wanted to offer some reassurance he himself did not feel, but every time he opened his mouth the sounds that came out were nothing like words. Nothing human at all.

Everything came and went in chaotic waves, and Edward struggled to keep _himself _amidst it all. Roy's constant presence and his scent seemed to calm the chaos. Roy was pack, pack was safe, and that feeling made it much easier to think. It was as if there were two minds in one head, clashing and tangling, the force of one nearly burying the other. He couldn't seem to figure out which way was which, and one moment Roy was Roy, and he next he was pack, and the longer this confused circle went on the less and less Edward could figure out which way it was supposed to be.

He leaned heavily against Roy's side, eyes closed. His head felt as though it were being torn in two, one side screaming that he was human and the other asserting that he was no such thing. He swallowed heavily several times, and at length he managed to find the words that had eluded him. "Hurts," he rasped, and his voice was deeper and rougher than it should have been.

Roy startled, but to Ed's relief the anxiety smell lessened. The arm around his shoulder tightened and Edward took the opportunity to squirm a little closer. The contact was nice, it helped, it calmed the storm in his head a little. "What hurts?" Roy asked softly, relief coloring the words.

That was a stupid question, Ed thought, and for a wild moment he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. "Everything," was his reply. That was just pain though, and pain would go away so he added, "Head. Thoughts." It was so hard to convey his own thoughts when he could barely hang on to them himself, and speaking hurt. It was as if his throat no longer worked the way it should.

Roy seemed to catch his meaning, and the anxiety smell intensified, and a whine tore itself from Ed's throat before he could stop it. He didn't like the anxiety smell, didn't like his pack mate's distress, and he pushed himself up and nuzzled Roy's chin in an effort to soothe him.

Roy stiffened a bit, and then relaxed. "I'm all right," he assured, voice strangely tight, his scent belying his words. "I'm just worried about you."

Edward was distracted by the sound of footsteps above, and he growled when the light flicked on. A moment later a man in a familiar white coat appeared, and all thought was washed away by rage, and he threw himself against the bars, snarling. The man started, taking several steps back, and he felt a vicious sort of satisfaction. The man was prey, and the stink of fear was evident, and if only he could get _out _he'd give the bastard every reason to be afraid.

The bastard seemed to recover from his surprise, but the fear smell was still strong and Edward growled as he came closer. The anger was fierce, the urge to kill stronger, and he slammed himself against the bars again, snapping and snarling. Black hatred surged, and Edward wanted the bars gone so that he could rip out the bastard's throat with his teeth.

The man, for his part, remained carefully out of reach to Ed's mounting frustration. "Well," he said at length. "It appears that I was successful." Edward slammed himself into the bars again, mindless of the pain.

Something touched him and he snapped savagely before he realized that it was Roy. He settled slightly, feeling guilt that he had nearly bitten him in his anger. With one last impotent snarl at the man outside the cage, he shifted back to Roy and settled once more at his pack mate's side.

This seemed to interest the man. "Oh, how fortunate. It seems he has retained some measure of affection for you, General. It appears you'll be of some use after all."

* * *

Roy seethed with barely controlled fury. "Why did you do this to him?" While he was relieved that something, at least, of Ed remained, there was no telling how deep the damage went. It was beyond cruel. Ed was resting against his leg once again, eyelids drooping, and Roy worried that he couldn't seem to stay awake for more than minutes at a time.

"Why?" the other man said, and Roy was surprised. He hadn't expected a response. "He murdered my son, that's why."

"What?" Roy blurted, shocked. He wasn't sure what he had expected to hear, but that wasn't it.

Glasses was oddly calm, glancing at Ed before returning his attention to Roy. "Not just my son, but thousands. Fathers and husbands and sons, all murdered in cold blood."

Roy shook his head in disbelief. "Edward would never--"

"But he did, General," the other man cut in. "It has not been so long that you could have forgotten what happened in Liore. When your young friend lured thousands to their death to make for himself a philosopher's stone."

For a moment, Roy could only stare. They had spent the last months in captivity only because the man was grossly misinformed. It would have been funny if it wasn't so horrible. "That wasn't Ed. It was Scar."

"The rogue Ishbalan, yes. I am aware that it is the military's official stance on the matter, but I'm no fool. The man would not have had the knowledge to create the stone, but beyond that don't you think it's telling that the only survivor was Edward's own brother?"

The bastard's mouth was set in a firm line, and Roy realized in dismay that no matter what he said he would not convince the man of the error of his assumptions. Even if he could, the worst of the damage had been done, so Roy merely sighed and looked away. Edward had fallen asleep again while they spoke.

A few moments passed in silence, and their captor said, "I was curious to see if he would kill you, but it appears not. It is better this way, I think. When I force him to watch while I kill you, perhaps he will better understand the pain of having someone he cares for murdered. The brother would have been better, but you will serve." He smiled, and the sight was chilling. "It is nothing more than Equivalent Exchange. He will suffer as I have suffered, he will lose as I have lost."

Roy refused to look at him, but he couldn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine. It wasn't unexpected. He had known on some level that his time was limited, but he hadn't expected it in this fashion. The notion of being put down like an animal was bad enough; but Edward being forced to watch? It made him ill to think about. Roy stared down at the dirty blond head beneath his hand and realized that their time had finally run out.

* * *

Havoc bounced his knee, alternately staring out the window at the countryside whizzing by and looking over the car packed with soldiers. Only a few more hours he told himself, trying to soothe his nerves. A few more hours and they would arrive, and he could finally _do _something. After all the damned waiting and wondering he was privately itching for a little action. He just hoped he found the two of them in one piece.

There was a discreet cough, and Havoc looked up to find one of Keats' men standing beside him. The man offered a lazy salute before taking the bench across from Jean uninvited. He tried to keep the mistrust off his face and quirked an eyebrow at the man curiously.

"Ah, sorry to bother you Lieutenant," the man said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "I just wanted to have a word with you before we arrived."

Jean said nothing, and was privately pleased when the man fidgeted slightly.

"I was told to inform you that we have reason to believe that there will be research of a very ah, sensitive nature at the target's home, and that we--"

Jean was getting sick and fucking tired of other people telling him how this was going to go down. "I don't give a shit what you think we're doing, Sergeant, but I can assure you that the rescue operation is my first priority. Once we get our men out of there, I don't give a damn if you want to strip the place down to its foundations, but I will not compromise the rescue operation over research of any nature, sensitive or not," he barked. "Understood?"

He received a mumbled, "Yessir," and a sullen glare before the man slinked away. Jean watched him go with savage pleasure. Keats was going to be pissed, especially if he didn't get what he wanted out of it, but Jean was caring less and less. Let the man court martial him, he really did not give a flying fuck right this moment.

He returned his gaze outside, and noted sourly that the sky was dark and heavy with rain. It would be just their damned luck if the sky decided to dump on the operation. Of course, in his experience mother nature was often a bitch, and very rarely accommodating. He sighed as a fat raindrop splattered on the window, followed closely by its fellows. Well, so much for hoping.

He glanced at his watch. Only two hours. He could manage two hours without going crazy, Jean was sure of it. Pretty sure anyway. Moderately sure, at the very least. He sighed, resting his head against the glass and wishing he could wind down enough to catch a nap before they hit Dover.

* * *

Edward was woken once again by an unwelcome presence, and he grumbled as he cracked an eye, peering beyond the bars of the cage. It was not the man from before, but someone else. He struggled with the name briefly before he managed to grasp it.

Bear.

It was Bear, and Ed could only think of a handful of times he had seen the large man without his master. Maybe Glasses had sent him alone in the hopes that it would prevent Ed from getting so riled up again. Privately, he was glad. The more he slept, the more he seemed to find a balance in his mind, but it was a precarious one. Edward had the distinct notion that it wouldn't take much to tip him over at all, and he had no desire to go through that horrifying loss of self again. It was bad enough as it was.

Bear beckoned to him, and Edward stared in disbelief. What more could the bastard possibly want of him? Bear opened the cage but made no move to remove him, and Edward found himself against the back bars before he had realized he'd moved. He didn't want to go out there. He stared at Roy with rising anxiety. He didn't want to be separated from his pack again, not again. He growled uncertainly when Bear moved. He didn't want to hurt the man either.

The smell that came from Bear was an unnatural, confusing jumble of human and something else, and Edward realized that they were the same. That Bear had been put through the same hell he had experienced, and had not come out of it half so well. Bear moved again and he whined, hunching down. Not again, not again. He wouldn't go, he wouldn't. Victim or not, Edward would take off his hand before he allowed the man to touch him.

He sidled closer to Roy without ever taking his eyes from Bear. There came a touch at his shoulder, and words he couldn't quite make sense of. He wouldn't go.

Bear seemed to understand this, and after a moment of confused thought, closed the cage once again and vanished back up the stairs. Edward relaxed marginally, but he was not gone more than a few moments before he returned with a peculiar looking gun. Edward barely had time to growl before the weapon went off, sharp pain blooming in his chest. He stared down in shock, some distant corner of his mind noting that it was not a bullet, but a dart. He stumbled, limbs going weak and unresponsive, falling against Roy when they refused to hold him any longer.

He lay there, still conscious but paralyzed, and Roy made a valiant effort to prevent Bear from taking him, but in his weakened state he didn't present much of a barrier to the larger and stronger man. Bear gently removed him from the cage, and Edward stared at Roy with a low whine.

They did not go far; Bear simply moved him across the way, depositing him in the cage that had been vacated by-- he shut the thought down, struggling with traitorous limbs, unable to make anything move. The cage was closed and locked, and Edward stared across the short distance that separated him from Roy. The other man was speaking again, but the words made no sense and Edward whined, rising anxiety tipping the careful balance in his mind and washing him away.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: I was going to wait a few days before posting this, but well, I have a hard time sitting on a finished chapter.

Much love to all of my reviewers, finding a new one waiting in my inbox is always the highlight of my day. :)

Chapter 5:

Jean sighed as the train screeched to a stop in front of the dilapidated slab of wood that served as Dover's train station. The rain was coming down in a torrent now, drenching the countryside in dreary gray and limiting visibility. For a moment he considered postponing the operation until the weather cleared, but he dismissed the notion. In a tiny place like this, word would get around about them, and fast. He didn't plan on giving Markham time to pack up and run.

He turned to the man at his shoulder and ordered him to start unloading the equipment. According to their information, Markham lived a fair distance outside the town. Jean wasn't surprised. He doubted the man could have gotten away with anything in a nosy little community like this if he had lived in the town proper. Throwing up the hood on his coat, he braced himself and stepped out into the downpour, the droplets falling so hard and fast it almost hurt, even under his coat. The men scattered across the platform like roaches, unloading the cars and other supplies.

Jean put a hand over his pocket wistfully, wishing for a cigarette. He wouldn't be able to keep it lit, not in this weather, and so he abandoned the notion with a sigh. Everything was unloaded quickly and the train eased away from the platform, vanishing into the rain. Hunching over to protect it from the rain, he drew a map of the area out of his pocket and consulted it. It would take them another half an hour to get out to Markham's place; more, in this weather.

He folded the map and tucked it away, hopping into the lead jeep as it drew even with him. The nerves had faded into a firm sense of purpose; he gave the driver a nod, and they pulled out onto the road.

* * *

Edward whined, and the sound tugged at Roy's heart. He wasn't taking the separation well at all, and Roy didn't know what to do. After the tranquilizer had worn off, he'd spent hours pacing awkwardly by the bars, sometimes ramming them, his distress visibly mounting. Once he had discovered there would be no escape, he'd slumped on the floor against the bars, arm stretched between them towards Roy, whining when the silence drew out too long.

Ever since they'd thrown Ed in the cage, Roy hadn't been able to extract any words from the blond, nothing at all beyond distraught whines and half-hearted growls when Bear or the bastard came too near. Roy was afraid that the stress was burying Ed's mind under animal instinct, and he had no way of knowing if it would cause some sort of permanent harm so soon after the change. If he wanted to be honest, the separation was no easier on him. For months, they'd been together, crammed into a tiny space, and the longest they had ever been apart was the space of a few hours. It seemed he'd become as dependant on Ed as Ed had become on him, and he was no happier with the separation.

His only consolation was that Ed was still in sight, that when the lights were on, he could see that he was okay. Ed, for his part, seemed to need constant reassurance to keep back the panic, and Roy's voice had gone hoarse from the effort of keeping up the steady stream of words, much of it becoming utter nonsense as the hours passed. Once, he had fallen asleep and woken to Edward having some sort of panic attack and the sharp smell of blood.

It had taken several minutes to calm him, and Roy desperately wished they had some sort of light so he could see how badly Ed was hurt. It wasn't uncommon for him to throw himself against the bars when the attacks hit, and Roy hoped that all he had done was manage to cut himself on a jagged edge. He had visions of Ed's body rejecting the transmutation, collapsing with the inability to hold itself together, and Roy forcibly pushed the morbid imagery away. Sometimes that happened in a bad transmutation, but the effect was always nearly immediate.

What bothered him the most was his inability to coax Edward into speaking again. The longer they were apart, the more anxious Ed seemed to be become, and Roy had no doubt that the consistently high level of stress was only doing him harm. Roy was startled from his thoughts when Edward whimpered, and he realized that he had lapsed into silence. Raging against his helplessness, Roy began speaking again and Ed quieted.

He rested his head against the cold bars. "I am so, so sorry," he said, unable to escape the feeling of guilt. Even if Edward was no longer one of his subordinates, he was still someone to be protected, and Roy had failed miserably in that regard. All he could do was offer what comfort he could, and Roy knew that it was too little. "I wish there was something I could do," he continued helplessly, "some way to fix this."

The rumble of a vehicle distracted Roy from his words. It was unusual enough for their captor to leave. He had only heard the car handful of times before. He opened his mouth to begin speaking again when the sound was joined by a second vehicle. Roy's heart jumped. That was new. The man never had visitors. There was a third car, the slamming of a door, and the muffled sound of shouting.

Stomach twisting with painful hope, Roy began bellowing at the top of his lungs, already abused throat screaming protest. Another sound joined his shouting, and Roy faltered briefly when he realized that Edward was howling, the sound eerie and almost musical; distinctly inhuman. Shaking the strange feeling off, Roy resumed his shouts, hearing the pounding of many feet when he paused for breath.

The shouting got louder, but he still couldn't make out he words. There was thumping upstairs as his captor ran around, a flash of alchemy between the floorboards, a crash and two distinct gunshots. Roy's heart flipped when he heard a body hit the floor. Shocked silence reigned for a moment, and the shouting started again, but there were no more gunshots and for the first time in weeks, Roy dared to hope.

The light flicked on, and there came the heavy thudding of someone flying down the stairs and a painfully familiar voice calling, "Mustang? Mustang!"

Havoc. "Here," he croaked, and then coughed and tried again. "Here, I'm here!"

Uniformed legs came into view and Roy never thought he would be so happy to see that blue. Havoc crouched, staring though the bars for a shocked moment before reaching through and clasping Roy's arm. His eyes looked suspiciously bright, and Roy blinked back relieved tears. "Thank god," Havoc said, then shook his head sharply. "Keys. Where are the keys?"

It took Roy a moment to process the question. "By the door, I think."

Havoc nodded and vanished from sight, returning a moment later and fumbling with the key ring. A few moments more and the lock fell away. The cage door opened and Roy stared at it in shock. Free. He was free. He crawled out and got to his feet, muscles that hadn't seen use in months giving way under the sudden weight and he stumbled into Havoc, who caught him easily and gave him a moment to find his balance. "You stink," Jean commented.

Roy laughed unsteadily. "I'm sure you would smell like roses if you hadn't had a bath in months," he retorted.

Havoc grinned at him, and Roy suddenly remembered Edward. "Ed," he said, stumbling away from Havoc and to the cage across the way. He sank to his knees and reached through the bars, coaxing Edward from his terrified crouch in the back of the cage. Edward stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before launching himself forward, clinging to the offered hands like a lifeline. His arm and shoulder was caked with dried blood, but the wound didn't look very bad. A wide cut, but it didn't seem very deep.

There came a low whistle from behind him, and the rattle of keys as Havoc knelt to unlock the cage. "He doesn't look so good," he said, searching to the correct key.

Before Roy could explain, the pounding of booted feet sounded on the stairs and Edward tensed up, growling low enough that only Roy could hear him. "Get them out of here," he said to Havoc.

Havoc halted in his search for the key and looked at Roy. "Huh?"

Two soldiers appeared around the corner and Edward growled loudly, earning a startled stare from Havoc. "Get them out of here!" Roy snapped.

"Out!" Havoc shouted to the two men, who paused and looked at each other in confusion. "I said out! And keep an eye on the door and make sure no one else comes down until I say they can."

The two men seemed baffled, but they saluted and retreated back up the stairs.

Edward settled slightly once they were gone, though he kept sending suspicious glances at Havoc. "You want to tell me what's going on?" Jean asked softly, finding the correct key and opening the lock with a satisfying snick.

"In a minute," Roy said, opening the door and finding himself with an armful of distraught Edward. The smaller man clung to him, winding his only arm around Roy's shoulder and tangling his fingers in his hair. Ed burrowed his face in Roy's neck, breath coming fast and hard, muscles shaking almost imperceptibly. Roy hugged him close, maybe a little too hard, but Ed didn't seem to mind.

He heard Havoc stand and move away, giving them a little privacy. The sudden realization that they were out, that they were _free, _washed over him in a startling wave of sheer relief. Edward clung to him a little tighter, nuzzling at his neck and that was when Roy realized he was crying. Pulling back slightly, Roy swiped at his face quickly to remove the evidence, before adjusting Edward slightly so that they could stand.

Even standing, Edward didn't seem inclined to release him. Havoc came back over, and if he noticed red eyes and tear tracks, he kept it to himself. "Give me your coat," Roy said, holding out a hand for it. Havoc shrugged out of long black coat and held it out. Roy made to take it and then paused, Edward's increased sensitivity to smell springing to mind. "This is yours, right? You didn't borrow it?"

Havoc raised his eyebrows in question. "It's mine."

Roy nodded and accepted the coat, pulling it around Ed's shoulders. Ed made a soft sound of protest when he was moved away long enough for Roy to get his arms through one of the sleeves. The coat was several sizes too large, sleeve covering his hand and several inches dragging the floor. He looked ridiculous, but it would serve. Ed's nose wrinkled slightly, and he raised the sleeve and sniffed it, eyebrows dipping in a puzzled frown. He turned slightly, still gripping Roy's arm and looked at Havoc as if trying to figure out a very peculiar puzzle.

"Ed," Roy said, and the blond head cocked slightly at the sound of his voice. "This is Havoc. You remember him, don't you?"

Too-yellow eyes blinked at him, then shifted back to Havoc. The man in question shot Roy a look and then said, "Hey, Chief."

Ed released Roy's wrist, taking a step towards Havoc before glancing back at Roy as if to make sure he was still there. Havoc watched, obviously confused, as Edward slowly approached him. Reaching out and cautiously bracing a hand on the lieutenant's shoulder, Edward stood on his toes and peered into Jean's face. Havoc shot Roy another look, and Roy said, "Just let him."

Edward looked back at him at the sound of his voice, and Havoc nodded. Ed watched Roy for a moment before turning his attention back to the lieutenant. Havoc jerked in surprise when Edward poked his nose into his neck, but promptly stilled, looking distinctly uncomfortable but allowing the odd exploration. After a moment Ed pulled suddenly away, head swinging this way and that, before he looked back at Roy.

His jaw worked several times before he rasped out, "We...?"

The flood of relief was so strong that Roy staggered under the weight of it. "They found us, Ed. We're safe."

Understanding lit Edward's face and moved a little unsteadily back to Roy. He slumped against Roy's chest, forehead resting against his shoulder. "Out," Ed said, voice muffled slightly. Roy understood the sentiment, but he was wary of taking Edward out there with all those soldiers around.

"Can I tell Havoc what happened?" he asked, resisting the urge to plant a kiss on top of the head resting again his shoulder. Edward sighed heavily, and after a moment he nodded. He met Jean's eyes over Ed's head and said, "They turned him into a chimera."

Blue eyes going wide, Jean stared for moment before shaking his head in denial. Gathering Edward's hair, Roy lifted it off his neck to show Havoc the black spotting, the most visible evidence. "I...shit. What?"

"Wolf."

"Shit." He rubbed his neck, staring upwards for a moment. "How bad?"

Roy sighed. "Not as bad as it could be, but..." He trailed off with a sigh. "He has a hard time speaking, and I think he loses control entirely when he's upset." Edward sighed again, and Roy gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. "I really don't know how deep the damage goes," he finished quietly.

Havoc looked at Ed, eyebrows knitting together in concern. "But," he looked back at Roy. "You can fix it, right?"

Roy's felt slightly ill. He had forgotten how little Havoc really knew about alchemy. He shook his head sadly. "Chimera can't be reversed, Jean. Trying would kill him."

"...Shit," Jean said eloquently. "Will he be okay?"

"I don't know yet." Roy hated saying the words, but it was true. "I hope so."

Edward tightened his grip on Roy's arm. "Out," he repeated plaintively.

"Okay," Roy said soothingly, giving in to impulse and smoothing dirty blond hair. He eyes caught Havoc's. "This stays between you and me. If anyone asks why he's acting strangely, just tell him he's traumatized." He sighed. "That's hardly a lie at this point."

Havoc merely nodded. "Let's get you out of here."

* * *

Jean's thoughts were swimming in confused circles like a fish with one fin. A chimera? _Ed? _His brain refused to grasp the notion, rooting sternly in denial. Chimera were monsters, and the chief was no monster. Shit. This was bad. He frowned inwardly as he helped Roy up the stairs, his legs unsteady enough that Jean didn't trust him to make it on his own. Alphonse was going to be heartbroken, and Jean felt a renewed surge of guilt that he hadn't found them soon enough.

He reached out to help Ed and the blond shied away from the sudden movement, staring at Jean with wide, mistrustful eyes. It was painful to see, and he pitched his voice in what he hoped was a soothing tone and said, "It's just me, Ed. I'm not going to hurt you."

Edward stared at him for a moment before taking a deep breath and accepting the offered hand. Jean helped Ed wobble unsteadily up the stairs, and he promptly latched on to Mustang again the moment he could. It was almost funny, in a sad sort of way, to see the usually independent kid clinging to Mustang like a lifeline. The thought was sobering. Maybe he was a lifeline. Jean could only imagine what the last few months had been like for them.

He nudged Roy in the direction of the door, skirting around the men taking care of Markham's corpse. Jean glanced down at the body with a savage sort of satisfaction. He was glad the man had taken the first shot, and he was glad he'd killed him, especially now that he knew what the bastard had done to Ed. Speaking of Ed, he realized with a jolt that he was growling quietly. A quick glance around confirmed that no one had noticed and he moved them quickly past the body. Hiding the fact that Ed was a chimera wouldn't be easy if the soldiers noticed him growling like an angry dog. Goddamn. Growling. People were not supposed to be able to make sounds like that, and it was uncomfortable proof that Ed wasn't quite human anymore.

Jean ushered them outside, and he noticed both of them squinting against the brightness, despite the heavy cloud cover. At least the rain had stopped, he noted, getting them settled away from the majority of the men. They had already gathered something of a crowd, a few locals milling curiously outside the perimeter. A couple of soldiers came over, one with two cups of coffee in hand, the other with blankets. Jean intercepted them before they could get too close, tossing the blankets over his shoulder before accepting the coffee. "They've been through a lot," he said by way of explanation. "I just want to give them some room."

"Yes sir, just let us know if you need anything," said the shorter of the two, before darting off to move back a few civilians who were closer than they should be. The other offered a salute, peering curiously at Ed and Roy over his shoulder for a moment, before moving off back towards the house.

Jean sighed, wondering how he was going to keep everyone away from Ed on the two-day trip back to Central. He returned to the other two, unable to suppress a grin at Roy's expression when he spotted the cups in his hand. "Please, please tell me that's what I think it is."

"Coffee," he announced, depositing one of the cups in Roy's hands. The other man took a sip, a blissful expression on his face. Jean snorted and handed the other cup to Ed, who peered into the black liquid as if he didn't know what to do with it. Jean dropped one of the blankets on Roy's head and draped the other around Ed's shoulders.

Edward blinked at him. "Thanks," he said, voice rougher than Jean remembered and he just stared in surprise for a moment.

"Uh, yeah. No problem." He sat down on Ed's other side. Relief and guilt warred in him, and Jean snuck a glance at the other two. They had both lost weight, and they were both filthy. Roy was sporting a scraggly beard that didn't suit him in the slightest, and he was obviously sick, though he was trying to be discreet about the coughing. He looked like shit, but he still looked like Mustang. Ed on the other hand, he seemed...diminished somehow. Everything about him spoke of something _different_, though Jean couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what it was. He was uncharacteristically skittish and jumpy, head snapping this way or that at the slightest sound.

He wondered how he was supposed to break the news to Al and felt a wash of sympathy for them both. The poor kids just couldn't seem to catch a break.

A soldier was approaching, and Jean almost scowled when he recognized the same man who had approached him on the train. Jean rose to intercept him, and Roy shifted protectively in front of Ed. The man didn't even spare a glance at the blond, saluting Roy sharply. "I have a message for you, sir."

Roy merely nodded, and the man waited a moment before saying, "I was instructed to give it in private, sir." He shot a pointed glance at Jean who had to resist the compulsion to stick out his tongue.

Roy sighed heavily. "Would you give me a moment?"

"Of course, sir," the sergeant replied, retreating to a respectful distance.

Roy stood, gently disengaging Edward's grip and earning a low whine. "I'll only be gone a moment, I promise. Jean will stay with you, don't worry." Jean returned to his seat beside Ed and was startled when he latched on to him much the same as he had with Mustang.

Jean looked up at his commander. "He's one of Keats' men. Don't trust him as far as you can throw him."

Roy nodded. "Stay with Ed, and don't leave him under any circumstances until I come back."

Edward whined again when Roy walked away, and Jean gave him what he hoped was a reassuring pat. "Don't worry, it won't take long." Edward didn't answer, simply burrowed hard against his side, and Jean could feel the rapid in and out of his breathing. Too fast, and Jean was reminded of what Roy had said about him losing control when upset. Frantically searching his mind for something, anything to distract him with, he blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Al is going to so relieved we found you."

"Al?" Edward rasped, and Jean felt a surge of relief. He didn't have the first clue how to deal with a chimera suffering from separation anxiety.

"Yeah," he said. "He was really worried about you. It's two days back to Central, but you'll be able to see him soon."

Edward stiffened at those words. "No," he said, shaking his head.

Jean blinked, wondering what he'd said to make the kid lock up like that. "No what?"

"_No,_" Ed repeated forcefully. "No Al. Not-" Edward shuddered against him, and he continued in a quietly miserable tone. "Not this."

It took Jean a moment to understand what Ed meant, and when he did, it made his heart twist painfully. "You don't want him to see you like this?" he asked gently. He felt Edward nod and sighed. He couldn't really blame him. If their positions were reversed, Jean wasn't sure he'd want to see his family either. Then again, he wasn't as close to his family as Ed was to Al. "He loves you," Jean said firmly. "That won't change because of this."

"Not Ed," came the reply, rough and sad. "I--" he trailed off, and the next word was so quiet Jean almost missed it. "Monster."

Jean had no idea how to deal with this. "You're not a monster," he said, hoping he sounded more convinced than he felt. He wished Roy would come back, because Roy might be able to talk some sense into the kid. Jean knew shit-all about alchemy, how could he argue when Edward might be right?

The sound of footsteps made him look up, but it was not Roy as he had hoped, but three of the men. He held Edward a little tighter. "What is it?"

One stepped forward. Patton, his mind supplied. "We're here to take the chimera, sir."

Jean felt Edward growl against his shoulder, and he wondered how the hell they knew. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, congratulating himself on sounding so nonchalant.

Patton sighed. "Please, sir. We have our orders. All chimera are to be taken into custody, and that includes that one."

Jean felt a surge of anger at the man for discussing Edward like he was some sort of animal. "Well," Jean said. "I have _my _orders, and he's to stay with me until General Mustang says otherwise."

Patton's blank expression twisted into a disapproving frown. "I don't think either of us want to create a scene here; you will give us the chimera so it can be contained for transport back to Central."

"Edward is not an _it,_" Jean barked, temper snapping. "He's a human being, and I expect you to treat him as such."

Patton looked as though he wanted to roll his eyes, but had far too much restraint to do so. "Of course, sir. However, General Keats has ordered all chimera taken into custody." The man was a goddamned broken record.

"Well, you can feel free to take that up with General Mustang."

The other two men --Decker and Mills-- took a step forward, and Jean leaped to his feet, hauling Edward with him. Edward, for his part, was openly growling at the men now. "We have permission to take it by force, if necessary," Patton warned.

It was amazing how Keats managed to be a pain in his ass half a country away. Suddenly grateful he had kept his gun, he drew it and trained the weapon at Patton. "That's nice. So do I." Which wasn't strictly true, but he suspected Mustang would heartily approve. The men with Patton drew their own weapons, but he ignored them. They were drawing attention now, and Jean fervently hoped it got back to Roy before things got ugly. "I don't feel like getting into a pissing contest here, Patton. Let it go."

Patton, to his credit, seemed to take no notice of the gun pointed at him. "The chimera is a danger to himself as well as others. Restraining him will be for his own safety."

"That's the biggest pile of bullshit I've heard all day," Jean snapped. Decker took another step forward and Jean narrowed his eyes. "Stay where you are, or I _will _shoot."

"Havoc, please," Patton shook his head. "You're already going to be in hot water over Markham's death. If you give up the chimera and cooperate, the general may go easy on you."

"Keats can go fuck himself, and you can quote me on that," Jean said, calmly aware that he was only digging himself deeper but finding it hard to care. "Let me spell this out for you. If you want to take him, you'll have to kill me first. If you think they can shoot me before I shoot you, I welcome you to try." He wished he was half as calm as he sounded. Where the _fuck _was Mustang anyway?

He felt Edward tense beside him, and that was the only warning he got.

Ed sprang away from him and leapt for the nearest of them. Decker didn't quite manage to bring his gun up before Edward clamped his teeth around his arm, dragging the man down with startling speed. There was a stunned moment when no one moved, and then Mills swung around to shoot Edward and Jean fired, catching the man in the shoulder. Patton dove for Decker's discarded gun but Jean beat him to it, kicking the weapon away and knocking Patton to the ground, kneeling on his chest and pressing the barrel of his gun hard against the other man's head. Patton stilled, staring up at Jean with narrowed eyes.

"Get this fucking--" Jean looked up when he words cut off suddenly, stomach dropping when he saw the large man pinned beneath Edward despite the handicap of size and a missing limb, throat held captive in Ed's teeth. He was staring wide-eyed at Edward, and Jean could hear a loud, rumbling growl. Shit. He really hoped Ed wasn't about to tear his throat out.

"_Ed! Jean!" _Relief washed through him when Mustang appeared around the side of the house, running as fast as his legs could manage.

Edward released his captive's throat at the sound of Roy's voice, springing up and running to Roy. Decker didn't move, but Jean didn't think he was dead, despite all of the blood.

Jean glanced up from Patton as the two approached, and was a bit disturbed to see Edward licking the blood from his lips. Roy stared hard at the men on the ground. "What happened?" he asked, voice dangerously even.

Jean stood, allowing Patton to get to his feet, but he didn't put his gun away. "We should probably get them looked at first," he said, nodding to the men bleeding on the ground. Mills would be fine, but he wasn't so sure about Decker.

Roy looked, eyes flicking between the mauled soldier and Ed with a frown. He sighed and called for a medic, waiting to make sure the men were tended to before moving off and motioning for Patton and Jean to follow him.

"These gentlemen decided they had the right to lock Ed up," Jean said before Roy could ask. "I wasn't about to let them."

"You've proven my point for me," Patton snapped, earlier composure gone. "That thing is a menace and needs to be restrained. He nearly killed a man!"

"You threatened him first," Jean pointed out.

"We can sit here and argue semantics all day, but it doesn't chance the fact the chimera is dangerous and very nearly tore out the throat of one of our men. It must be locked up!" Patton stared hard at Ed who growled at him in response.

"As long as he stays with me, he won't hurt anyone," Roy said stiffly, and Jean realized that Patton had them by the balls. By attacking a soldier, Ed had proven himself to be dangerous, at least in the eyes of the military. It didn't matter that the bastards had provoked him, and Jean narrowed his eyes at Patton, wondering if that had been the plan all along.

"And risk your own well-being? I think not, General." He paused a moment, and added, "Once we return to Central, you might be able to get them to release him into your care."

There was a tightness around Roy's eyes that said he knew the chances of such a thing were practically nil. He also knew that he would only cause more trouble for them --and for Ed-- by fighting it. His only option was to give in, and Patton knew it, the sneaky little rat. "Fine," Roy said shortly, anger evident. "But if I find he has been mistreated in _any _way, I will have your head on a platter, understood?"

Patton offered an oily smile. "Of course. I assure you, he will receive all the care he deserves."


	7. Chapter 6

:Chapter 6:

Agreeing to let them put Edward back in a cage was one of the hardest things Roy had ever done. Unfortunately, Patton and Ed himself hadn't given him much choice. Edward was no longer human by definition, and chimera had no more rights than animals; less in some ways. Patton would have been within his rights to demand that Edward be put down after attacking that soldier, provoked or not. The situation made his blood boil, and when Patton stepped forward to take Edward, he jerked the smaller man back instinctively.

Patton's lips tightened into a thin line. "Sir," he began.

"At least let me get him some clothes and something to eat first," Roy interrupted. He'd have argued for a bath too, but the only way he'd get something like that was to go back in that house, and he didn't think either of them were prepared to do that.

For a moment Patton looked like he was going to argue, but then he nodded. "I'll have to put a guard on him."

He was seized by a sudden bout of coughing before he could reply, and he bent over double, bracing his hands on his knees and waited for the fit to pass. Edward whined anxiously, and Roy reached out blindly and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and he really did not need this. Not now. "Fine," Roy said shortly once he could, simply relieved that Patton wasn't going to fight the point. Ignoring the other man, he turned to Havoc who looked as angry as he felt. "Find him some clothes?" he asked.

Jean blinked, breaking the angry stare he'd had trained on Patton and looked at Roy, eyes flicking down to Ed who was still wearing his coat. "Yeah, sure. There should be some spare uniforms, I'll get one for both of you." He took a few steps back, obviously reluctant to leave them, before turning on his heel and trotting towards the line of vehicles parked nearby.

Patton flagged down two nearby men that Roy didn't recognize, and neither of them looked too thrilled be anywhere near Ed after what had happened to the other soldier. While Patton gave them their orders, Roy moved a little way off and looked down at Ed, who was being remarkably quiet. The blond was clutching tightly at his arm, but his attention was elsewhere. He was staring hard at the medics tending to the injured men, expression troubled.

Not for the first time, Roy wished he could tell what the younger man was thinking. "Come on, Ed," Roy said, turning him away from the scene and moving in the direction Havoc had gone. Their newly appointed guards followed at a respectful distance, but Roy got the impression that it was only because they didn't want to be any closer to Edward than absolutely necessary. Havoc emerged from the back of one of the covered trucks and waved them over. He tossed Roy a couple of bundled uniforms and motioned towards the truck. "You can change in there," he said. "Yours should fit well enough, but I dunno about the chief. And," he rummaged around in the truck for a moment before producing a jug of water, a pan and a rag. "It's not a bath, but at least you can clean up a little."

Roy was so grateful for Jean right then it was almost physical. He didn't think he would have had he strength to deal with this alone, not after everything they had gone through. He clapped Havoc on the shoulder as he hopped up into the truck. "Thank you," he said simply.

Jean offered him a small smile that quickly vanished when he turned to bark at the guards. "Hey, bozo! How about giving them a little privacy? Truck isn't going anywhere." Roy glanced over as he helped Ed up, noting that the guards looked relieved to have an excuse to hang back. He was a little offended on Ed's behalf, even if it did make things a little easier. They were acting like the small blond was some sort of ravening beast, and it was infuriating. Edward was going through enough as it was without being treated like a monster. This was supposed to be a rescue, but because of something Ed had no control over, he was going from one cage to another.

Roy sighed, using the water to dampen the rag. He took Ed's hand and began cleaning away the grime as best he could. Edward for his part was being uncharacteristically pliant, and Roy suspected that he was more troubled by the way he had attacked that soldier than anyone else. Rinsing the rag in the shallow pan, Roy tipped Ed's chin up and began to repeat the process on his face gentle hands. Ed's eyes were downcast, and Roy said, "Hey."

Those starling yellow eyes flicked up to his face, and Roy wondered if he'd ever get used to them. He smiled slightly, "There you are. I was beginning to forget what you looked like under all that dirt." The comment earned him a small, wry twist of the lips that went as fast as it came. Ed sighed, but didn't take his eyes from Roy's, expression clouded and unhappy. God, he hated seeing him like this. Roy was sure that Edward knew what was going on, more or less, and he was obviously not any happier about it than Roy was.

Unfolding the smaller of the two provided uniforms, Roy helped Ed out of Jean's coat and Roy's own dirty old shirt, and into the fresh, clean uniform. He almost left off the jacket, but decided that although it was getting warmer out, it was better if Ed were too warm than too cold, especially if Roy wouldn't be able to look after him. Once Ed was situated, he repeated the process on himself, relieved to at least have clean clothing even if he couldn't have a real bath.

Once they were both dressed and as washed up as they could manage, Roy got Ed situated on the end of the truck bed where Jean was sitting. "I don't suppose there's any hope of getting some real food?" he asked.

Havoc offered him a small smile. "Afraid not. All we have at the moment are field rations." He hopped off the bed of the truck, and nodded in the direction of another one. "I'll go grab you some; they might only be rations, but you can have as much as you want."

After what they'd had to eat for the last few months, field rations would be a godsend, and he said as much. Jean gave him a pat on the shoulder. "At least you're out now," he said gently.

"Halfway," Roy replied, sliding a glance over at Ed who had returned to staring at his feet. Not for the first time he desperately wished he knew what was going through his head.

"Bastards won't have him for long, we'll figure something out. You can bet on it." Havoc's certainty was reassuring, and Roy nodded.

"You're right. We'll get it sorted out, one way or another. I'm not leaving Ed with them one second longer than absolutely necessary." He repeated the vow silently to himself, feeling at fault for Ed's current predicament. Roy should never, never have left him alone, not even in Havoc's care, not even for a moment. The instant they were back in Central Roy was going straight to the top to get things sorted out.

Havoc left and returned shortly with food, and they ate slowly in silence, Roy trying to drag it out as long as possible. Once they finished he'd have no more excuse to keep Ed; he'd have to hand him over to Patton as agreed and Roy knew that even though the younger man seemed placid enough now, once they were separated he was going to be anything but. Roy was so tired and worn and _worried, _and he really didn't have the energy for this, not now.

Ed seemed to sense his distress and leaned into his shoulder. It was a bit silly for Ed to be trying to comfort _him _of all things, but Roy appreciated it regardless. Painfully aware that he could put this off no longer, Roy nudged the shoulder against his and asked, "How much of what's going on did you catch?"

He refused to assume that Edward didn't understand what was going on around him, and he was rewarded when yellow eyes flicked up to his and Ed rasped, "Enough."

Roy hoped that was a good thing, hoped that it meant that Edward would do better going back into captivity than he feared. "I'm sorry," he sighed, glancing up at the guards who still kept their distance but seemed to be getting impatient. "You know I won't let this go, right? I promise I'll come for you as soon as I possibly can."

Ed nodded, his own gaze traveling to the guards briefly before returning to Roy. "Know," he frowned. "I know."

That was all there was to say, then. Roy hopped off the bed of the truck, helping Edward down before nodding to the guards. They glanced at each other for a moment before one said, "I'll just go get Sergeant Patton," and moved away. He returned a few moments later with Patton in tow, and Roy could feel Ed tense beside him. God, this was just so completely fucked up.

The two guards came forward slowly, shooting nervous glances at each other. One gingerly took Ed's arm and Roy heard Edward growl. He put what he hoped was a comforting hand on the younger man's shoulder and said low enough that only Ed could hear, "Don't give them a reason to hurt you. It won't be for long. I promise." Yellow eyes met his and Roy could see the beginnings of panic there, but Edward nodded slowly and began moving at the guards urging. The other guard shot Roy a grateful look and he struggled with the urge to punch the man square in the jaw.

Roy moved to follow, but Patton stepped between him and Ed's retreating figure. "You should rest, sir. We'll take care of him from here."

"I want to make sure he's being treated right," Roy said, trying to move around him, but Patton again stepped in his way.

"He'll be restrained and placed under guard just like a dangerous prisoner, sir. I assure you that we'll follow every protocol." Roy scowled at the shorter man, but Patton seemed unfazed. "Please, after your ordeal you need rest. We'll take care of it."

"I'll be checking up on him from time to time to make sure you _do _follow protocol, sergeant," Roy snapped, infuriated at the whole situation and far too tired to deal with it all with a calm hand. If they planned on treating Ed like a prisoner, then he wouldn't be comfortable, but he wouldn't be outright mistreated either. It was probably the best he could hope for at the moment. Patton saluted, turned on his heel, and walked away.

Roy watched until Edward was out of sight.

* * *

"I just can't believe it," Mrs. Carter sighed, ushering Roy through the door like he was a child and not a grown man. "Daniel kept to himself, but he always such a _nice _man." The Carter family had turned out to be the nearest neighbors to their captor, whom Roy had discovered was named Daniel Markham. The community was already in an uproar over the news that one of their own had kidnapped a military general. "And Ben! He was a sweet boy, a little simple you know," she confided, then paused, turning a horrified stare on Roy and wringing her hands anxiously. "Oh, they didn't hurt Ben, did they? I know he looks like a great big villain, but he'd never hurt a fly! Not on purpose."

"He's fine, ma'am," Roy assured her. Bear, or Ben rather, had given himself up quietly after Havoc shot Markham. Roy had every intention of asking for leniency on the big man's behalf; he didn't believe the man was capable of being intentionally malicious any more than Mrs. Carter did.

"Oh good," the portly woman looked quite relieved, and Roy was glad. She was a very kind lady, and he didn't want to cause her any undue distress. "Take off your boots, dear. Can't have you tracking mud all over the house."

Roy complied, following her through the house. It was small, but neat and well-kept, and something smelled so good Roy's stomach was turning itself inside out in anticipation. "It was my Marian that tipped them off you know," she continued, poking her head into a linen closet and pulling out a towel. "She's going to school in Central," Mrs. Carter continued, puffing up proudly. "A right genius my girl is. Anyway, she recognized the other one, the boy, from a poster if you can believe it. How is he? The other gentleman told me he wasn't well."

That was the story they'd been forced to tell when Mrs. Carter had offered a bath and a meal to those 'poor boys'. That Ed was simply too sick to be left unattended. "He'll be fine once we get him some care," Roy told her, wishing it wasn't such an outrageous lie. He felt unbelievably guilty to be getting a bath and a real meal while Ed was huddled in chains under guard somewhere. It was beyond unfair.

"That's good to hear," she asserted, ushering him into the bathroom. She set the towel on a stool and pointed to a basin and mirror. "You can go ahead and use Harold's things to shave and I'll have a bath drawn up for you quick as I can. I'm afraid we still have to heat our bathwater the old fashioned way out here."

She made to sweep out the door but Roy stopped her with a hand on her arm. "I can heat the water myself," he told her. No sense in making more work for the woman than he already had. "As long as you have something I can write with."

Mrs. Carter raised her eyebrows in question. "And just how would you do that?"

"I'm an alchemist," he informed her with a smile

Her eyes went wide with delight. "No kidding? An alchemist? Well, I'll be! I've never seen an alchemist before, you just wait right here and I'll fill the tub and find something for you to write with." She bustled from the room and Roy reminded himself to ask later if there was anything she needed fixed. It was only right after the generosity she showed, as well as the genuine regret that no one had noticed anything amiss sooner.

Once the bath was filled and Mrs. Carter had scrounged Roy up a piece of charcoal to work with, he quickly drew the array on the side of the tub and activated it. He heard the woman behind him gasp at the brief flash of light, and then the water was steaming. "Oh, no one is going to believe it when I tell them about this!" she chirped, clearly delighted. "A real live alchemist, right in my own home!" She beamed at Roy, and then turned to go. "I'll leave you to your bath, dear. If you need anything at all, just holler."

As soon as she was gone, Roy slipped out of his clothes and settled into water that was just a touch too hot. Oh, it felt _wonderful. _After months without a bath, he'd have been happy with a dousing in cold water, but this was absolutely heavenly. His battered body relaxed in the heat, and even the constant ache in his lungs seemed to abate a little. Roy spent a little longer than he should have simply indulging himself in a soak, the steam making his hair stick to his face. Eventually, he mustered the energy to actually clean up, the water quickly turning a disgusting, sludgy brown as he scrubbed away months of dirt and grime.

Once he was clean, he got out of the bath and dried quickly, fully intending to take advantage of the offered shave. Roy had never been a beard man, and being stuck with one had been a constant irritant. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but something he was thankful to be rid of. When he was finished and dressed, Roy gave himself a once-over in the mirror. His hair was in dire need of a cut, but beyond that he looked almost presentable, if a bit on the thin and pale side.

Mrs. Carter was at his side as son as he stepped out. "Well, look at you! Don't you clean up all handsome?" She gave his cheek a motherly pat and sat him down at the table. "Harold and the boys should be in any minute," she informed him. "I can't imagine how long its been since you had a good, home cooked meal, so you go right ahead and eat as much as you want, you hear? There's plenty to go around."

"I appreciate that, Mrs. Carter," he said. And he did, though Roy simply could not shake the image of Ed in his mind's eye and the guilt that image brought with it.

"Call me Emma, please," she said, bustling around him and setting the table. "So, is there a Mrs. Mustang at home?" she asked as she worked.

Roy blinked at the question, and shook his head with a smile. "No, I suppose you could say I'm married to my career."

Emma tsked disapprovingly. "Behind every great man is a good woman," she informed him, shaking a fork at Roy before setting it on the table.

Before Roy could reply, the door banged open and an older man trundled in, followed by three younger copies of himself. Thankfully his appearance seemed to derail Emma from her train of thought, and she swept back into the kitchen, pausing to give her husband a quick kiss.

The man --Harold, Roy thought it was-- gave him a curious once-over. "You must be that fella Markham had locked in the basement."

Straight to the point, Roy observed with a wry smile. He stood with a nod and offered his hand, "Your lovely wife invited me to dinner. I hope it's no imposition." Indulging in social niceties after all that time in a cage was an utterly strange experience.

Harold took the offered hand, his own calloused and rough, grip firm. "No trouble at all," he said, taking his seat at the head of the table. "You look like you could use a good feedin' and Emma always makes enough to feed the whole county anyway."

"That's because you eat enough for the whole county," Emma retorted, reappearing with a large pot that she sat on the table as Roy retook his seat. Introductions were made all around as Emma came and went with more and more food; a huge pot roast, potatoes, beans, a salad, and fresh baked rolls. It was very hard to maintain his manners with such a spread staring him in the face, but somehow he managed.

Once everyone was served, Roy broke into his fare slowly. While they hadn't been precisely starved, they hadn't been well fed either, and Roy knew that over-indulging now would simply make him sick. The food was excellent, and Roy heaped praise on Emma for it. "I don't suppose you'd let me take a little with me for my friend, would you? He's not well enough to come himself, but I know he'd appreciate it."

"Of course dear!" Emma beamed at him. "I don't know why I didn't think of that myself! As soon as we're finished here, I'll put together a care package for the poor thing."

The conversation continued from there, ranging from the few details of his captivity that Roy could safely tell them to more mundane concerns such as last year's crops. Roy kept mostly to himself, though he did answer any questions they asked as politely as he could, and felt a little bit better about things. At the very least, Ed would get to eat well tonight too.

* * *

He'd promised.

That had become Edward's mantra over the last few hours, ever since the guards had taken him away and clapped him in chains. Roy had promised to get him out as soon as he could, and Ed clung to that promise like a lifeline. It was hard, so, so hard not to let that stark fear get the best of him again. Fear that shouldn't be his, fear of unfamiliar smells and people and being separated from his pack. From Roy.

Ed had been okay for the first few minutes. But as minutes stretched into hours, he began to lose the battle, just like before. It was easier to keep his head in some ways; the blind panic that threatened was tempered by the sure knowledge that Roy would keep his promise, but the multitude of foreign smells was difficult to deal with. Fear from the men that guarded him, the nearly overwhelming scent of motor-oil and too many strange humans. Roy's scent was lost among all the others, and that was perhaps the worst of all.

They would not let Roy see him, though Ed wasn't quite sure why. That meant at the very least, it would be days before he'd see him again, maybe onger. The thought caused a surge of anxiety, and Ed tried to distract himself by reciting alchemical formulae in his head. It worked for a while, but eventually his mind could no longer grip the facts and figures, and he slipped once more into his comforting mantra.

He'd promised.


	8. Chapter 7

:Chapter 7:

Jean was afraid.

He stood on the train platform in Central, smoking a cigarette and watching uneasily as the men unloaded the train. Roy sat behind him on a bench, still very easily tired and wrapped up in his own personal misery and anger. It wouldn't be obvious to the casual observer, but Jean had known Roy far too long not to recognize the signs of thinning patience and barely controlled fury. They had glimpsed Edward briefly when he had been transported from the train to a waiting truck, hanging limply from a guard's grasp and very likely unconscious.

_Or dead_, a treacherous voice whispered in the back of his mind, and Jean stamped on it savagely. Thinking like that wouldn't help anyone, least of all Ed. The sight had a profound effect on Roy, already wracked with guilt, and he'd immediately tried to stomp off after them in spite of he fact that it wouldn't do anyone any good. His boss usually had better sense than that, but it was obvious that they'd bonded over the course of their captivity, and that Roy was thinking with his heart and not his head. This was a battle that would have to be won with paperwork and the pulling in of old favors.

The reason Jean was afraid, however, had nothing to do with that. It had to do with the sleek black military car that he'd called for, the one that pulled up just now. First, he'd take Roy to the hospital, because in spite of his assertions that it was 'just a cold,' Jean felt he needed proper medical care; there could be underlying problems that they weren't even aware of. After Roy was situated, though, he'd have to go home. Alphonse was waiting there for news, and Jean was going to be forced to tell him the very painful truth.

_That _was why Jean was afraid. It was going to hurt the kid so much to hear what he had to say, and Jean would give anything not to be the one who had to break his heart like that. What would he say? How did you tell someone that his brother wasn't dead, but broken, and worst of all that he hadn't even been able to bring him home like he'd promised? Sighing, he took one last drag of his cigarette before tossing it on the ground and rubbing it out with his foot. "C'mon, our car is here."

The drive to the base hospital passed in silence, both men wrapped up in their worries about two different brothers. Roy finally looked up as they pulled into the parking lot and frowned. "I'm not going to the hospital, Jean."

"Tough shit," Jean replied, not really in the mood to argue with his CO. "You need to get checked out. You look half dead, and even if it isn't anything serious they can at least give you something for that cough." He parked, looking pointedly at Roy. "You can go willingly, or I can drag you kicking and screaming. Your call."

It looked for just a moment like Roy was going to opt for kicking and screaming, but then he sighed and relented. "Fine," his tone a clear indication that it was anything but. Jean followed him inside, filled out the paperwork, and stayed with him until he was in the grasp of a nurse. He didn't exactly trust Roy not to make a run for it if left to his own devices.

"I've got to go," Jean said, and then continued at the questioning look he received, "Someone's got to go tell Al."

Roy stopped in his tracks, earning a disgruntled stare from the nurse he'd been following, and said, "I'd completely forgotten about Alphonse. He's going to be devastated."

"Yeah." There was no sense in denying it. He and Roy shared a look, and Jean decided that he had better leave now or he was going to lose his nerve. "Call me when you're finished, and I'll come pick you up," he said and then left without waiting for a reply.

His apartment wasn't far from the hospital, and it wasn't long before Jean sat parked outside, staring at the brick facade of his building and doing his level best to steel himself for the encounter. He sat there for nearly ten minutes, arms braced on the steering wheel and running through a thousand different ways to break the news. There was no way to say it, no way to soften the blow, and eventually Jean told himself to man up and get out of the damned car.

In spite of that, he trudged up to his second floor apartment just about as slowly as humanly possible, staring at his feet all the while and feeling like a man going to the gallows. It wasn't as though he was worried that Al would blame him, because he wasn't. Mostly, he just couldn't bear to see that stricken look on his face when they'd all had so much hope. Pulling his keys from his pocket, Jean didn't even get them to the lock before the door flung open and he was met by an anxious face. "Is he here? Where is he? He isn't hurt, is he?"

Jean could only blink in the face of the flood of questions, before smiling a little sickly and ushering Al back into the apartment, closing the door behind them. God, he didn't want to do this. "We found him, both of them," Jean began, wondering belatedly if it was cruel to start with what sounded like good news.

The relief on Al's face was almost painful to see. "Thank goodness. I thought- I mean, Breda said, but I..." he trailed off, unable to find the words and just shook his head. "Why isn't he with you? Can I see him?"

_Here it comes, _Jean thought, taking Al by the shoulders and sitting him down on the couch. "They're alive," he said, wishing that wasn't the best news he had. He'd gotten most of the story from Roy on the train back to Central, and it wasn't pretty. Jean was planning on sparing Al the details if at all possible. "But, Markham did some pretty nasty stuff to your brother."

Face draining of color, Al stared at him with wide eyes. "What happened?"

Steeling himself against that stare, Jean continued. "He's alive," he repeated, as though that made it better. "Ed though, he's...a chimera," he blurted, looking away.

Alphonse made a soft sound of horror, and it hurt his heart to hear it. "How bad?" he asked, voice breaking. He sounded like he might cry and Jean really hoped he didn't, because he didn't know what to do with people when they cried.

"He's still mostly human," Jean rushed to assure him, and then realized how horrible that sounded. "I mean, he _is _still human, he just doesn't look like--" Jean cut off abruptly, painfully aware that he was making a complete mess of this. "Physically, he looks mostly the same. His eyes are different, and he has some strange...spots." Al said nothing, and Jean risked a look back at him. The boy looked so small and frail, as if he'd just folded in on himself. "I talked to him, a little. It wasn't easy for him --talking I mean-- but he still seemed okay." That was a lie, really. Ed had seemed far from okay, but at least he was still capable of human thought, that had to count for something, didn't it? "Mustang seems to think he'll be all right with time," he finished lamely, unsure what to say. He was no alchemist, and he didn't know the first thing about chimera.

"I want to see him" Al said, the words barely audible. Then, stronger, "I need to see him."

"You can't," Jean said quietly, feeling like it was all his fault even though there was nothing he could have done. "They took him into custody, because they said he was dangerous. But don't worry!" he rushed on, desperate to offer some sort of reassurance. "Mustang won't let them keep him. We'll get him back."

Alphonse seemed to just crack, something behind his eyes shattering and before Jean even realized what happened he found himself with an armful of sobbing Elric. Unsure what to do and feeling a little like crying himself, Jean rubbed small circles on his back, murmuring words he hoped were comforting, and knowing there was nothing he could do to make it better.

* * *

He awoke to the sterile, antiseptic smell of a hospital. It was almost overpowering, and Ed wrinkled his nose in distaste as he opened his eyes, peering around in bleary confusion. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the light, and when they did he realized it was no hospital. Slowly, he sat upright, limps heavy and sluggish as he tried to figure out where he was and how he'd gotten there.

The room was peculiar. It was small, square, and very white, nothing inside but the bed he sat on and a toilet in one corner. The bed had thick leather restraints, the sight of which made him nervous even though they weren't currently in use. It looked very much like an asylum to Ed's mind, and the thought was not a comforting one. They couldn't mean to lock him away for the rest of his days like some sort of lunatic, could they? No, no. Roy would never allow that. Never. Shoving away the uneasiness with sheer force of will, Ed returned to his perusal of the room.

The most striking feature was the large mirror on one wall, and Ed stared at the ragged creature looking back at him in shock. That couldn't be him, could it? Slowly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got a bit shakily to his feet, approaching the mirror slowly. Bracing his hand against the cool glass, Ed stared. His _eyes. _They weren't the familiar gold he was used to seeing, but instead a sort of yellow-amber. It shouldn't be so different really, but it was. An animal's eyes.

Inhuman.

Shuddering, Ed wrenched his gaze away, studying other elements of his appearance and being careful not to look himself in the eye. Beyond his eyes, he looked almost normal. No claws or ears or fur, nothing twisted or deformed, just a man. A thin man, pale and ragged and looking like he belonged on a street corner begging for change, but a man regardless, and Ed realized that was nothing short of a miracle. He was very nearly a perfect human chimera.

Human. Ed snorted, darkly amused. He could hardly lay claim to that title anymore. Pushing away from the mirror, Ed shuffled back to the bed and sat down, the short sojourn to the mirror having very nearly exhausted his strength. He had met a perfect human chimera once, and suddenly Ed deeply regretted never asking what it was like _inside._ Had Martel suffered the same riot of alien drives and thoughts and instincts as he was? Had she overcome them somehow, or had the people who created her discovered a way to filter the animal mind out in the course of the transmutation? Would he always have to fight the animal for control? So many questions he might never have the answers to.

Something was happening in his mind, and it scared the living shit out of him. In the beginning, his mind and the animal mind had been very nearly separate; the thoughts of the wolf an invader in his head. It was a bit like what having a split personality might be like, two wholly separate consciousness fighting for dominance. The wolf won that fight early on, because her instincts were so overpowering that it drowned out the human mind almost entirely.

In the two days on the train, with nothing but his own thoughts for company, Ed began to realize that was changing. Rational thought became easier, and he found himself slipping less and less into that primal state where everything that made him Ed simply seemed to vanish. He'd been so relieved, thinking that the animal mind was losing its grip somehow, that his own mind was rejecting the alien presence. Until he'd realized that precisely the opposite was happening.

His mind wasn't driving hers out; it was _integrating _with it. It was as though once his body realized it couldn't eject the foreign entity, it decided to yield to it, and that was almost more terrifying than the complete lapses in control. With every day that passed, it was becoming harder to discern the line, harder to tell where he left off and she began. It had almost gotten to the point where he didn't even realize that some of the things he did --and worse_, thought-- _were completely inhuman unless he stepped back and made the effort to look at it objectively.

He had her memories. Ed knew that the wolf that had been sacrificed to make him into _this _was female. Knew each of her pack mates like he knew his own brother, categorized in his head not by name --they had no names-- but by scent, sight and sound. He remembered snow and trees and hunting, remembered being trapped by humans and caged as if these memories were his own. He remembered fear and anger and heartbreaking loneliness, a desperate yearning to be back among her pack; a black depression weighing down her heart as she was carted further and further from her pack, her family. Her emotions were so human in some ways that Ed could scarcely believe it, and along with the so-vivid memories had come an understanding.

Edward knew precisely why the bastard had chosen this animal to merge him with. The knowledge had come unexpectedly from one of her memories.

This integration had been exactly what his captor had wanted.

__

He was dying.

The air of mourning was thick among the others, and hunkered at her mother's side, she joined the death watch. The black male was big, strong, and one of her favorites. He was very tolerant of her antics, and sometimes could even be goaded into playing. Now however, the smell of blood was thick in the air and he lay so very still, the only sign of life his labored breathing. The actions of the others indicated that it was only a matter of time, and it made her very sad.

His mate lay beside him, occasionally raising her head to nuzzle him before settling again. She would die too, soon enough, and the pack mourned her as well. Even though she had never witnessed anything like this in her short life, she knew that it would happen. His mate would not go on without him, and once he died she would remain with the body, protecting it from scavengers until she too, passed. It would not take long.

They sat in silent vigil until the labored breathing ceased, and one by one the howling began, a mournful elegy for the lost.

The memory was poignant, and even though he knew it wasn't his own it still made Ed's chest ache with loss. That memory, coupled with those from after she was captured painted a startling picture. Wolves, this particular breed at least, were far more intimately tied to pack than he had ever realized. Not that he'd ever given it much thought at all; Ed'd had a lot more to worry about than the social behavior of wolves.

They _mourned_ themselves to death. Over the loss of a mate, as in the memory, or over being separated from their pack. She had suffered from such an overwhelming loneliness at the loss of her pack, terrible depression and a stark longing to be back where she belonged that it simply leeched away her will to live. Edward knew that this was not unique, but simply a part of what they were. She had been very close to death at the time they were joined, so weary of being alone she would much rather be dead.

Edward was almost certain that it had been that trait that the bastard had wanted to pass on. The horror of losing his own humanity was just bonus. That was why they had wanted Al but taken Roy; he had wanted to take away someone Ed cared for, _his _pack, and just let him waste away in misery. To take first his freedom, then his humanity, and finally his will to live. The very idea was sickening, but the more Edward had chewed on his theory over the long train ride, the more certain he had become.

The morbidly funny part about it all was that even though the bastard was dead, it was becoming increasingly likely that things would play out exactly as he'd intended them.

Ed missed Roy_ desperately_. So much so that not even his pride could blunt the stark truth of the fact. After a day the initial panic had faded somewhat, replaced by a very sharp longing for the older man that made him so miserably lonely he could barely stand it. It took him longer than it should have to equate his feelings for Roy to the ones she had held for her own pack and realize they were very nearly the same, because right now, Roy _was _his pack.

And right now Ed needed him like he needed air. What was happening to him was the beginning stages of what had happened to her. Part of him wanted to believe that he'd pull through, that human will would be enough to defeat some sort of social behavior that was never his to begin with, but he had his doubts. Edward leaned against the wall with a sigh. It felt a little like a betrayal, like it should be Al he wanted. Alphonse was family, it only made sense, but that was the human. The wolf had decided that Roy was a part of his pack, and if he wanted to be honest he'd sort of grown on the human bit too.

Ed knew that Roy would get him out of...wherever this place was. Eventually. What he didn't know is how long he would be able to wait.

"Hello, Edward."

The sudden voice startled him, and he growled low in his throat, peering around the room. An intercom, he realized after a moment, and he relaxed slightly. There was probably an observation room on the other side of that mirror. He tried to say 'let me go!' but his throat closed around the words, and frustrated, he could only manage a guttural, "Go!" in a voice that was far too deep to be his. The change had warped his vocal chords, made speech beyond a single word difficult. He'd have to try and work on that.

"I'm sorry, Edward," came the disembodied voice again, and it was female. Ed was fairly certain he didn't recognize it, but that wasn't surprising. "I can't let you go. Do you understand what you are?"

Frowning at the phrasing, Ed nodded.

"That's good," came the reply, confirming his theory that this woman was on the other side of the mirror and could see him. "We're here to help you," she continued, and Ed snorted. He seriously doubted that. "But in order to do so, we need to learn more about your condition. I'm going to come in and give you a quick exam. If you comply, you'll be left free, if you respond violently, you'll be restrained and sedated. Understood?"

So that's how it was going to be. Probably the only he reason he wasn't restrained already is because they wanted to observe him awake. He nodded again, though he was privately unsure how he might react. Particularly if the exam got invasive.

A few moments later there was a thunk from the other side of the door, and then it opened. Ed caught a glimpse of another door beyond that, and realized they weren't taking any chance that he might escape. The woman who entered looked like a typical lab rat, with her white coat and clipboard. She paused just inside the door, observing him for a moment. As soon as she came closer, Ed had to swallow a growl. He could smell her now, the scent of another human almost comforting, but it was female and unfamiliar and _not Roy. _In spite of this, he managed to quash the bizarrely territorial instinct to warn her off, proud that all he did was stare at her suspiciously.

She nodded, seemingly satisfied that he wasn't going to leap up and attack her like a ravening beast, and it was only then that Ed noticed the absence of the smell of fear. She wasn't afraid of him, and that was almost a relief. Drawing a pen light from her pocket, she held it up to his face. "Open up, please." Ed complied, and she shined the light in his mouth. "Hm, that's quite a set of teeth," she said, though it seemed more like she was talking to herself rather than him. "No wonder you did such a number on that soldier. You can close now."

She marked something down on her clipboard, and Ed ran an experimental tongue over his teeth. He hadn't noticed anything different about his teeth, but he supposed that had been the least of his concerns. Now that she mentioned it, they did feel longer. And sharper. Kind of creepy, but not as creepy as his eyes. That just straight up gave him the willies. "It says here the animal you were merged with was a wolf, is that correct?" Ed looked up at her and nodded again, and she marked something else down on her clipboard. After all he'd gone through, this wasn't so bad, really.

After a moment she said, "It's safe to assume that since your outward appearance is still primarily human, most of the wolf physiology was converted internally." Ed was impressed in spite of himself. She obviously knew a thing or two about chimera. Physically, chimera were always a perfect half and half, though it was very difficult to control what half was what. It was simply the nature of the transmutation; any change to the equation rendered the resulting chimera dangerously unstable, and they often lost cohesion and simply...melted. Or worse. Alchemists had been trying to find a way around that element forever, with no luck whatsoever. Ed blinked down at his hands. At least, he didn't think so. Controlling it on the other hand, directing which halves go where...maybe. Which would mean that his internals had been almost entirely rearranged, and that was a slightly unsettling thought.

"What do you eat?"

He was pulled from his thoughts by the question, taking a split-second to be overjoyed that he _could _think so well again, and blinked at her. "Food," he rasped, twisting his lips in a sardonic smile.

The woman smiled slightly. "I mean, what kind of diet? Assuming your digestive tract is now more wolf than human, that is. Do you feel a particular craving for meat?"

Ed shrugged slightly in answer. He hadn't given it any thought really, and had just eaten what he'd been given. The idea of a good, thick steak sounded _wonderful, _but that didn't really mean anything one way or the other. Anyone who had existed on a diet of scraps and mush for months would be desperate for a real meal too.

"Hm." The scratching of pen against paper.

Suddenly irritated by the fact that he didn't have a label for her, Ed asked, "Name?" Besides, it couldn't hurt to try and be friendly. He doubted she was the one pulling the strings, but he might earn a little more consideration than the average chimera research project by interacting with her.

She looked up, apparently surprised by the question. "Dr. Arcourt," she replied after a moment. "Remove your shirt, please."

Ugh. If she whipped a needle out of that coat, Ed was through playing nice. Sighing, he did as he was asked, shrugging out of the loose white shirt a bit awkwardly and putting it on the bed beside him. It was then that he rather belatedly realized that he was clean and someone must have bathed him. How embarrassing. "Too thin," Arcourt tsked, marking something down. "But not as bad as it could be. Stand up and tun around, please."

Well, at least she was polite, Ed mused, doing as he was asked. He flinched when she touched his back and didn't quite manage to swallow the growl when it slipped out. The hand drew back, and Ed cursed himself, thinking he'd just earned himself sedation with the knee-jerk reaction, but all she said was, "I'm just taking a look at the markings on your back." Markings? What markings? Resisting the urge to crane his neck around to see, he nodded. The hand returned, this time moving his hair over his shoulder.

"Remarkable, I don't I've ever seen markings like these on a wolf. The spots are much more reminiscent of something you would see on a cat." Spots? He had spots? The curiosity was killing him now, and he wished she'd get it over with so he could look for himself. "I don't suppose you know what species of wolf it was?" Ed shook his head. The kind with teeth and fur and claws, but he suspected she was going for something more specific.

"Shame, I'll have to see if I can find out." The hands vanished but were back momentarily, this time in his hair. Ed twitched, managing to suppress the urge to turn and snap at the prying hands only barely. He could not figure out why the hell he was so damn touchy. "It looks like the spotting continues up the scalp," Arcourt commented, and then the hands were gone. Ed heard the scritch of pen on paper and took the opportunity to angle around and crane his head to get a look at his back in the mirror.

She hadn't been kidding. There were large, irregular black spots on his back and shoulders, growing smaller towards the spine and neck. They covered the whole of his back, the pattern narrowing as it went down from his shoulder blades and widening again slightly where it vanished into the waistband of his pants. Ed wanted to see the rest, but he wasn't about to pull his pants down in front of the lady doctor. They almost looked like tattoos, but he knew they weren't.

"Are there any other physical characteristics about the change I haven't looked at, besides your eyes?" Ed looked away from his scrutiny in the mirror and shook his head at her. None that he had noticed.

"Then we're finished for now," Dr. Arcourt said, tucking her pen back in her pocket. "I appreciate the cooperation, Edward. You should try and get some rest."

He nodded at her, and she left. Once she was gone --and trying not to think she was on the other side of the mirror-- Ed tugged down his pants long enough to discern that the spotting continued down his hips and thighs before it tapered off. Strange, but just cosmetic, really. He could deal with that.

He could deal with all of it, he mused as he pulled his shirt back on, if it weren't for everything going wrong in his head. The doctor had distracted him briefly, but he was alone with his thoughts again. With a sigh, Edward settled on the bed, tucking his knees up and resting his head on his arms. This was a cakewalk compared to what he had endured the last few months, but he no longer had Roy to keep him company.

Roy.

He sighed heavily, the thought drawing his attention to just how much he missed the man. He'd had no idea how much he'd come to depend on Roy's constant presence until it was gone. It was probably some sort of grossly unhealthy dependency, made worse by the wolf, but Ed found he had a hard time caring. He just wanted his pack, wanted Roy. Suddenly tired, Ed slipped under the blankets, taking a moment to marvel at the novelty of having a bed before closing his eyes. Roy would come, he knew it. Ed just hoped it was sooner rather than later.


	9. Chapter 8

Holy crap, she lives! You have my abject apologies for the lengthy delay. I wish I had a valid excuse, but...I don't. From here on out, updates should be more regular, but I've learned my lesson about making promises. As always, many thanks to my lovely reviewers, you guys always make my day. :D

Hey! The site isn't mangling my formatting anymore? When did that happen? *joy!*

**::Chapter 8::**

Roy snarled into the phone as he was transferred yet _again _and slammed the receiver down. This was getting him absolutely nowhere. He had seen Keats briefly during the debriefing, but afterwards the man had vanished like so much smoke before Roy could get him alone for a word. Now, every time he went to Keats' office, the general was conveniently 'out' or 'in a meeting', and it seemed no matter who he called, he wound up getting shuffled around from secretary to secretary until he gave up.

He had managed to gather that Ed was being kept in a research facility somewhere, and that whatever they were doing with him was so classified that Keats was evidently the only one who knew anything about it. Roy had been chasing after the man for a week now, and so far it seemed to be doing him not one whit of good. The other general was avoiding him on purpose, that much was clear, and it was frustrating Roy to no end.

"No luck I take it?" Alphonse asked, appearing at his elbow with a steaming cup of tea in hand.

"No," Roy sighed, accepting the cup and the pill that went with it. He'd been diagnosed with pneumonia, and after hearing seventeen different times that he was damned lucky it wasn't worse than it was, he'd been sent on his way with antibiotics, tea, and an admonition to get as much rest as possible. Alphonse had taken to playing nursemaid --Roy suspected this was at Jean's behest-- and he found himself unable to refuse the gentle, but persistent boy. He took a sip of the tea, grimacing as the foul concoction hit his tongue. The doctor claimed it would help the cough, and while that was certainly true, Roy was beginning to think the cough was the lesser of two evils. Despite Roy's attempts to evade it, Alphonse appeared with a cup of tea in hand every two hours like clockwork, and hovered long enough to make sure Roy drank it. Al was equally firm over any attempts to exert himself, and Roy just didn't have the heart to fight him about it.

Al sighed, sitting in the chair opposite. They were in Jean's apartment --though Havoc himself was gone-- having turned the place into a sort of headquarters. Roy had tried to go home and had been met with very stern refusal from both sides, Jean insisting that he stay until he was better, otherwise he'd wear himself to death. Roy had privately thought that was a bit of an exaggeration, but had consented to stay until he was healthy again regardless.

Roy had been put on extended leave until his health improved, and so far all he had done with the time was chase Keats in circles and come no closer to finding Ed. He looked over at Al and took another sip of the god awful tea. "I'll camp outside his office and ambush him, if I have to. I'm going to get Ed back."

Alphonse smiled at him, the expression small but genuine. "I know. I'm glad that," Al hesitated, looking down at his hands, "that Brother had you instead of being alone."

Coming from Alphonse, the words meant a great deal. He reached out and took one of Al's hands in his own, giving it a squeeze. Anything he could say to that would come out sounding trite, and so he said nothing at all, keeping the hand in his own for a moment before releasing it. Alphonse seemed to understand the peculiar bond that he and Ed shared now, but why wouldn't he? If anyone would understand how shared trauma could tie two people together, it was Al.

The rattle of keys outside heralded Jean's return, and a moment later the tall man stepped through the door, a bag of groceries in one hand and a manila folder in the other. The groceries were dumped on the floor without ceremony as he kicked the door shut and bounded over to the table, dropping into the chair beside Alphonse and slapping the folder down on the table with an air of victory. "Breda says you owe him dinner for a month." He slid the innocuous looking folder across the table towards Roy.

The name printed in neat hand on the tab was not Edward's, but it was the next best thing. Opening the file labeled 'Markham, Daniel', Roy glanced through several pages of highly classified documents before looking up at Jean. "How?" he asked. None of his team had the clearance to get their hands on this file. Hell, _he _didn't have the clearance to get his hands on this file.

Jean snorted, pulling a cigarette from his pack and putting it between his lips, leaving it unlit. Having Alphonse for a temporary roommate had apparently done wonders for making him cut back on his habit. "Honestly? I have _no _fucking clue. I don't think I want to know, really."

Roy flipped back to the first page, going over the documents carefully. The more he read, the more he began to realize that getting Edward back would be no small task. It might even be impossible. Markham was head of the human chimera research project at Lab Five. The focus was on creating super soldiers with increased strength, speed and endurance. Most of the research had been lost with the destruction of the building, and now with Markham dead Edward was the last living remnant of that research. "We aren't going to be able to get him out through official channels," Roy said at length, shoving the file away.

"Why?" Alphonse asked, taking the file and flipping slowly through it.

"Keats is trying to reinstate the human chimera project, I'm sure of it, and Ed is his one link. They're probably going to try and... reverse engineer him, or something." The very idea of Ed undergoing even more experimentation made his stomach turn. Hadn't he suffered enough without enduring torture at the hands of the people who were supposed to be the good guys? Of course, Ed wasn't naive enough to believe there was such a thing, and neither was Roy.

Alphonse made a quiet sound under his breath, looking unsettled. "Martel," he said. "This was the man who made Martel."

"The head of a team, at any rate. According to this, they had a great deal of success." Roy sighed heavily, feeling the onset of a headache. "If this file is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt it, that means that we're going to have to find Edward on our own, and that we're going to have to break him out. Keats is never going to let him go; not when he's the only remnant of Markham's research."

Roy stared at the innocent looking manila folder. The information it contained meant that he would have to throw away the career he had worked so long and so hard to build for Edward. Once upon a time, he might have been able to let the young man rot in whatever hole they kept him in, but Roy wasn't that man anymore. If it was a choice between his career and Edward, it was really no choice at all.

He couldn't really bring himself to regret it.

***

Kate frowned through the observation window, watching Edward as he slept. The young man slept a great deal, something that was hardly unusual in a chimera still adjusting to the change, but something in his behavior was deeply troubling. With every week that passed, Edward was drawing further into himself, growing less and less responsive to outside stimuli. It had gotten to the point where Kate had begun to actively provoke him just to elicit some sort of response, even if it was a negative one.

Chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen, Kate leaned back in her chair and glanced at the pile of reports she'd accumulated on her most recent project. Edward was not the first human chimera in this facility, but he was the only one Kate had ever encountered who retained his human intelligence on anything more than a rudimentary level. She'd given the young man the same simple logic games that were used to evaluate the mental capacity of the others and he had solved them quickly and easily, making his disdain for the simple puzzles clear. She'd moved on to harder and harder tests, and he solved all of them quickly and easily, some of the more advanced ones faster than she herself could have.

Kate was being forced to admit that Edward had lost little, if any, of his higher reasoning skills, and that was really what troubled her. The others were broken, simple-minded creatures, mere shadows of their former selves. It was easy to justify keeping them here. But Edward... She sighed, stacking the scattered reports in an effort to keep her hands busy. Edward was as intact as a chimera could hope to be, and Kate was feeling increasingly uneasy about keeping him under lock and key.

She'd begun working with him to improve his ability to talk after she had discovered his trouble was not mental, but a result of warped vocal cords. Edward had progressed through the therapy quickly before he'd fallen into this lethargy, and faced with a reasoning creature who could finally articulate his thoughts, Kate had decided that he didn't belong in this facility, regardless of what they seemed to think. Unfortunately, when she'd brought the subject up on one of General Keats' frequent visits, the man had immediately shot her down, stating that Edward was far too valuable to their research to simply be let free. He'd then alluded to having her removed from the project, and that was the end of the matter.

The general wanted the experiments to begin in earnest, impatient with all of her careful study and fact collecting. Kate wasn't sure she could do it. Something was very wrong with Edward, but no matter how she pressed, he refused to speak on the matter. Even if she set the moral dilemma aside, she wasn't sure that Edward would be able to endure much experimentation in the state he was in. His appetite was diminished; he was sleeping more frequently and becoming less responsive when awake. The boy was wasting away, and Kate couldn't figure out _why. _This slow, miserable slide seemed so far outside the personality profile in his file and what she herself had witnessed that she didn't know what to make of it.

Kate knew she'd have to figure it out soon. The general wasn't going to let her delay the project much longer.

With a sigh, she pulled one of the wildlife books she had collected out of her desk and turned to the marked page, flipping through pages of glossy photos and facts. She hadn't yet discovered what breed of wolf Edward had been combined with, but she hadn't had much time to look. It was irrelevant to the project; they wanted to know how he was made. The what was less significant. Still, the spotting on his back was so out of the ordinary that Kate wanted to know, even if only to satisfy her own curiosity.

She almost missed it, too absorbed in her thoughts to pay much attention to what she was looking at. _Spotting? _She flipped back a page, and there it was. A big gray wolf staring out of the page with Edward's eyes, the spotted pattern on his back less dramatic on fur than on flesh, but immediately recognizable. _The Briggs Mountain Wolf, or Spotted Wolf, is native to the Briggs Mountain region. There is some speculation that they might range farther north-- _Kate scanned the page, looking for any relevant information. Habitat and diet, physical characteristics, social behavior. Here she stopped, the problem with Edward printed in plain black and white.

_The Briggs Mountain Wolf rarely survives long in captivity, although there has been some noted success with mated pairs._

Kate looked up through the observation window at the still bundle beneath the blankets. Rarely survives long in captivity. Could it really be so simple? Had Edward merely been unfortunate enough to find himself merged with an animal that was unable to handle captivity? She tapped the page thoughtfully. They knew so little, really, about how chimera functioned that it was entirely possible. Kate sighed heavily, marking the page and closing the book. If that was the problem, there was very little she could do to fix it. She could hardly set him free; Keats would have her court-martialed in a heartbeat.

Unless...

Unless she had nothing to do with it. Flipping open Edward's file a second time, Kate noted down the relevant information and tucked it into her pocket. She might be unable to do anything for Edward directly, but there might be a way to see to it that the young man received aid from a different quarter.

***

Roy stared down at the note in his hands, turning it this way and that as if looking at it from another angle might somehow unravel the mystery.

_If you want to help him, meet me at Arlo's at 1900 hours._

That was it. No name, no other information. The secretary hadn't seen anyone drop a note in his box, and so Roy was left with this minor mystery. The 'him' referred to in the note must be Edward, and after a bit of checking around, he discovered that Arlo's was a hole-in-the-wall dive downtown. It could be some sort of setup, but after three weeks Roy was getting desperate enough to take the risk. The note was vague enough that he could plead ignorance if things went bad. He didn't tell Alphonse or Havoc, not wanting to get their hopes up if it turned out to be nothing. And so he had slipped out, making some excuse, and nineteen hundred hours found him standing outside of Arlo's.

The tiny bar was packed, and after a moment Roy took a seat at the bar, ordered some scotch, and hoped the one who left the note would find him.

It wasn't a long wait. As soon as the stool beside him was vacated, a woman Roy didn't recognize took it. "You're very prompt, General."

"When it's important," he replied. "Want to tell me what I'm doing here?"

She glanced around, fingers tapping nervously on her knee. "Let's take a booth," she suggested. Roy followed her to one of the corner booths, and as soon as they sat, she said, "You need to get him out."

Roy frowned. "Don't you think I've been trying?"

The woman shook her head. "No, you don't understand. They'll never release him willingly, and he's...he's just wasting away. Being locked up like this is killing him. I can't-- if someone let him free, they'd know it was me. But if someone broke him out..." she trailed off, staring at her hands. "I can tell you where to find him. The rest is up to you."

"Why are you doing this?" Roy asked, scarcely able to believe his luck. It could be a trick, a way of Keats to get him out of the way for good, but that was a risk Roy was more than willing to take.

The woman sighed. "He doesn't belong there. The others...they're simple. Broken. Childlike, most of them. Not him though, hell, he's smarter than I am. If he survives the testing they want to put him through I'd be amazed. If he survives long enough to get to that point, I'd be amazed. I've done some research and the," she paused, glancing around before she continued in a low voice. "The breed he was merged with never survives long in captivity, particularly alone. They become lethargic, refuse to eat, and sleep a great deal until the body just...gives up. I'm seeing the same symptoms with Edw- with him, and frankly I'm concerned. I wouldn't be here otherwise."

Roy swore quietly, passing a hand wearily over his face. He'd known on some level that Ed wasn't going to be doing well, but to hear it confirmed strengthened his resolve. His own investigation had hit dead end after dead end, and he was getting desperate. It was a risk, a dangerous one. This woman obviously worked for Keats, and there was every chance that he had put her up to this so that he could catch Roy red-handed and get him out of the way for good. "Tell me."

***

His dreams had become increasingly vivid. Vibrant color and emotion behind his eyes, a tide of memory and fantasy melding into each other so seamlessly that it was hard to tell which was which.

_Bright blue sky stretching on forever, not a single cloud to mar the perfect expanse. Ed closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the scent of fresh-cut grass, of hay and cows so wonderfully familiar. The breeze tugged at a few hairs that had come loose from his braid, and Ed opened his eyes to find Roy sitting beside him. Ed made to speak, a question on his lips, one he'd been meaning to ask for ages now...but then Alphonse was calling them in for lunch. He got to his feet, wiping the dust from his pants and offered a hand to the other man. His question could wait a little longer._

Dragged from the comforting oblivion of sleep, he glanced around the room. The washed out nothing of the waking world, a woman's voice, a plate of food he did not want. This place was the stark reminder that he was alone, and Edward closed his eyes against it. The dreams were not always good, but at least there, he still felt alive.

_Snow beneath his paws and wind in his fur. The pounding of his heart and the thrill of the chase, the hunt, the kill. The exultation of running, flying though the trees in a flurry of snow. This was what it was to be alive. His packmates around him, the fearful bleating of their prey as she tired. A moment more and they were upon her, tearing flesh, and the prey fell quickly under their combined might._

_The red of the blood was so stark against the white snow._

He was dying. Part of him accepted the inevitability, and part of him railed against it. A little longer! it insisted. Just hang on for a few days more, and Roy would come. He would never, never leave him here alone. He would come.

Unless he couldn't.

_The heat of the flames was intense, but Edward didn't back away. He couldn't, as he watched the fire lick at the wood, turning their home to ashes._

Day by day, the protesting voice grew weaker.

_After so, so much hardship, Al was Al again. Ed could see his smile, ruffle his hair. Alphonse could feel, cry, touch and taste again. It didn't matter to Ed that he'd have his automail for the rest of his life; it was the penance for his mistakes. As long as his little brother was no longer paying the price, it was okay. Ed quit the military, moved back to Risembool and opened their little shop. He and Al had the opportunity for a normal life now, and that's all he'd ever wanted._

_Except things didn't quite work out that way._

_It was nice, for a while. Then Edward began to grow restless. There was no challenge, no obstacles, and Ed found himself missing the old days. With that feeling came guilt. What kind of bastard would miss the period in his brother's life where he suffered so much? Still, he had difficulty taking much of an interest in anything. He knew he should move on, wanted to move on. Ed knew he should find himself a girl and settle down, have a couple of kids and get a dog. That's what normal people did, and wasn't that what he'd always wanted? To go back to being normal?_

_Despite his grumbling, he began looking forward to their visits to Central. Seeing their old friends injected a spark of life into him that he couldn't seem to find in Risembool. He refused to tell Al; his brother was happy, and Edward would not do anything to jeopardize that. But he had to wonder what was wrong with him--why he couldn't accept the rest he'd fought so hard to earn._

It wouldn't be long now. A week, a few days, less.

_A gentle touch and a comforting voice in the darkness._

He just hoped that when the time came, the dream would be a good one.


	10. Chapter 9

Well, well, well. An update. Imagine that. XD Once again, I'm sorry about the delay. I've been in a hell of a slump since the last update, but here's hoping this heralds the end of it. The next thing you see from me should be an update for Best I Ever Had, which has been sorely neglected in favor of Dichotomy this last while. I also updated my progress on various projects on the main page, although you won't be seeing any of the new ones until I finish my current two beasties. Posting even more WIPs right now considering how unreliable I can be would just be plain silly. XD

**::Chapter 9::**

Roy looked at two sets of eyes over Jean's kitchen table and took a deep breath. "I know where Edward is."

The resulting clamor was expected, Alphonse leaping out of his chair as if he expected to go rushing off immediately, the two of them talking over each other and making not one damn bit of sense. Roy held up a hand for silence, and after a moment the two of them complied, sinking back down into their respective chairs. "What are we waiting for?" Al asked, shifting this way and that, burning with nervous energy.

"There's every chance that this is a setup." Roy told them. "The information came from someone working on the project, and it's possible that Keats is just trying to nail me so he won't have to deal with me. If I'm out of the way, he'll have free reign to do whatever he wants to Ed with no one important asking questions." Roy had come prepared, pulling out a map of the city. The facility in question wasn't on base, but rather in a converted warehouse in the east end of the city. "This is where he's being kept," Roy said, circling the area with a pen. "According to my informant, the facility is well protected. Anything important is down in the basement levels, and I'll have to get in and make it down to the third level without being caught."

Alphonse frowned, catching his meaning and not liking it in the slightest. "You mean we."

"I mean I," Roy said firmly. He didn't have any illusions that he would be able to keep Alphonse out of this, but he had to try. Edward wouldn't appreciate Roy risking his little brother, and one man was less likely to draw unwanted attention than two. "There's a very good chance that following through on this is going to land me straight in a prison cell. I can't risk you too."

"With all due respect boss, I'd like to see you try and stop us," Jean said, leaning forward on his elbows. "If you think we're letting you do this alone, you're more of an idiot than I took you for."

Roy pinched his nose to stave off the growing headache. They were ganging up on him; he should have expected it. "Even if we're successful Jean, you can kiss your career goodbye. I'm not going to let you throw it away." His people had always been willing to risk it all for him, and that meant a lot to Roy; but it didn't mean he was going to let one of his men chuck his career in the garbage just because Roy was.

"What career?" he said, scowling. "Keats is having me court-martialed over Markham's death. Disobeying a direct order, destruction of military property, so on and so forth. I've got nothing to lose, and if you think I'm going to sit back here safe and sound while you go jumping into the fire, you don't know me very well."

Roy frowned at this news. "This is the first I've heard of it." Where did Keats get off, disciplining Roy's men? Of course, right now Jean _wasn't _his man as far as the military was concerned; he was Keats' and that meant that Havoc was under the other general's jurisdiction. Damn it all.

Jean shrugged with a nonchalance that had to be feigned. No one could face the loss of a lifetime of work so easily. "I only got word a few days ago myself, but I can't say I'm surprised. I don't regret what I did for a second, and I'm coming whether you like it or not."

Roy sighed, tapping his pen on the tabletop thoughtfully. Sometimes loyalty was a goddamn pain in the ass, but he couldn't help but feel a bit warmed by it regardless. "If you had a half a thought in that smoke-shrivelled brain of yours you'd stay put, but I suppose that's too much to ask for."

"Yes sir," Jean said, leaning back in his chair.

Alphonse merely said, "I'm going," and Roy nodded. He didn't have the right to deny him, not really, and the talented alchemist would be a huge asset to this insane jailbreak scheme. And it _was_ insane. It was more than likely going to blow up in his face, but Roy had to take the chance, small though it may be. He owed it to Ed. "We go tomorrow. There's no point in delay, and there will be less staff on the weekend."

* * *

"Why hasn't the project gone forward?" Keats asked, frowning through the observation window at the bundle beneath the blankets.

"He's ill, sir," Kate half-lied, knowing any pleading on behalf of Edward's mental health would go ignored. He wasn't well, but she suspected it was due more to distress than any true physical illness. "If we were to proceed with experimentation, it is very likely he will not survive." That part at least was true, she didn't think Ed had the will to put up with something like that, not now. She hoped, not for the first time, that she had done the right thing in going to General Mustang. "I was given to believe he was too valuable to be risked."

Keats sighed heavily through his mustache. "Quite right," he grumbled, "quite right. This illness of his isn't serious, is it?"

"No sir," she lied again. "It's simply a bad flu, he probably caught it from one of the guards." Something that was entirely feasible; soldiers just didn't understand the importance of of cleanliness where chimera were concerned. Their immune systems were often weak, and they were prone to catching any little bug.

Another grumble. "I suppose this would be a good time for you to bring me up to speed on his abilities. I've been so busy running Mustang in circles that I haven't had time to go over your reports." He pulled out a chair and sat. "Goddamn bleeding heart; he wouldn't give a damn if it were anyone else, but our only link to Markham's research just had to be his pet alchemist."

Kate refrained from comment, retrieving Edward's thick file from the cabinet. She'd let the young man get to her, and in doing so had violated the first rule of her work -- don't get attached. Kate believed in the research they did here, she really did, but chimera, particularly human varieties, often died suddenly and unexpectedly. If she let herself get attached to every one that came through her lab she'd have died of heartbreak by now.

Edward however had slipped through her defenses by virtue of his sheer differentness; too smart, too aware, too human.

Kate set the file on the table and took a seat, flipping through the pages of notes until she found what she was looking for. Facts and statistics, words on a page, and it was easier to pretend she wasn't talking about someone mourning his life away in the other room. "Unlike most chimera, his outward appearance is still almost entirely human, as I'm sure you've noticed. The changes he did experience seem to be minute and mostly cosmetic; spotting along the shoulders and back, a slight darkening to the pigment of his eyes, teeth more reminiscent of a carnivore. Unlike most chimera, he doesn't seem to experience any undue muscle or joint pain."

She turned to the next page, rattling off what she had learned in her weeks with Edward. "Changes seem to be primarily internal. He has a much greater preference for meat; uncooked if at all possible, much the same as a typical carnivore. He has," Kate was proud she managed to keep her voice from quavering, "managed to retain his human intellect as far as I've been able to determine, although warping of the vocal cords make speech difficult. Physically, he appears to be both faster and stronger than the human norm, even accounting for increased strength due to automail."

"Excellent," Keats said, looking satisfied. "He's almost precisely what we've been trying to create for years. Now we just have to figure out how Markham did it."

"About that, sir," Kate said, flipping through the file for her copy of Dr. Markham's notes. Where was...ah! "He makes several references to some sort of drug treatment. It seems Edward was being injected with this substance almost daily. See, here," she pointed, moving the paper around so he could see, "He mentions that Edward was reacting well to the treatment, and there's a few places where he talks of 'building resistance', although to what exactly I can't say." Kate frowned at the notes. Edward had corroborated the notes, stating that he was being regularly injected with some sort of drug that had mild hallucinatory effects and often left him physically weak and ill, but Kate hadn't been able to find any drug with those side effects that might effect the outcome of a chimera transmutation. It was certainly puzzling. "Did your men find anything like that?"

Keats frowned slightly, reading over the notes. "My men found a great deal that might be what he's discussing here. For all that he was a meticulous note taker, he didn't seem to much care for labeling. I'll have anything that might be this drug sent to the lab for testing." He looked up at her. "If this is some new substance and not a pre-existing drug, do you think your team could replicate it?"

"My team?" She shook her head. It never ceased to amaze her that soldiers always thought the term 'scientist' was an umbrella one. She knew very little about most drugs beyond the usage of certain sedatives. "No sir. You'd need a specialist for something like that."

Keats hummed under his breath. "Whatever it is, I think it might be the key to reproducing the results. I'll make it a priority." He stood, smoothing the front of his jacket. "Thank you for your time, Dr. Arcourt. Make sure our guest recovers quickly; this project is too important to be delayed longer."

"Yes, sir."

Keats was gone, and Kate slumped down into her chair with a sigh. She slowly shuffled the papers back into order and replaced the file in her cabinet. Kate had a lot of work to do; Ed might be the priority, but the lab had a dozen different experiments going at any given time. If she couldn't move forward with Ed, she should focus her attention elsewhere.

Still...

Pushing open the outer door to Edward's room, she locked it behind her before opening the inner door. Ed didn't stir, and she shook her head. Just another sign of his decline. Before, he'd wake from a dead sleep if she entered the room, but no longer. "Edward," she called, coming to stand beside his bed. He was so young, only a year older than her own son. Maybe that was why she was having such difficulty with him, because he reminded her a bit of Alec.

Edward didn't react, and so she sat on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on soft blond hair and leaning forward slightly. "I told him," she said. "Mustang. He'll get you out of here, you just have to hang on."  
_  
That_ provoked a reaction. Edward stirred, cracking amber eyes and peering around in confusion. "Roy?" he rasped.

"Not yet," she said. "But soon. So hang in there, okay?"

Edward hummed in what she hoped was an affirmative before lapsing back into that unnatural sleep that gripped him at all hours anymore. Kate sighed, stroking his hair for a moment before she stood. This was just too painful.

She left, snatching her clipboard from the desk and moving briskly down the hall toward the elevators. Mira wasn't due for another visit just yet, but Kate could do with a bit of cheering up, and Mira never failed to make her smile. Mira was in a less secure level of the facility; tame and far more easily managed than some of the more dangerous chimera that called the facility home. Kate opened the door and was greeted by the sight of a colorful room with toys scattered about. "Mira?" she called.

"Katiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!" came the squealed reply, Mira darting out of the bedroom with her awkward, four-legged gait. Kate smiled, crouching down and hugging the chimera who barrelled into her.

"Hello sweetheart, how have you been?"

"Goodgood," Mira sang, butting her head against Kate's chin in a catlike manner. Mira was one of their saddest cases, come from a rogue alchemist group that was using an orphanage as a front, of all things. A good way to keep a ready supply of subjects with no one to care if they vanished, but heartbreaking regardless. Mira was one of only two survivors, the melding of a ten year old girl and a house cat having rendered her perpetually childlike. "Donnie present! Markers, seesee?"

Mira hobbled over to the low table made especially for her, snatching up a scribbled drawing in one malformed hand and presenting it to Kate proudly. "Katie present! You like?"

"It's beautiful, Mira, thank you," she said, tucking the childish drawing under the notes on her clipboard.

Mira wrinkled her nose, plunking down on the floor and peering at Kate in that peculiar way she had. "Katie sad why?"

The girl could be so childlike one moment, and remarkably perceptive the next. She smiled slightly. "I'm sad because someone else is sad."

"Bring play!" Mira said decisively. "No more sad."

Kate put a hand on her head, earning a happy purr from the child. She really wished it as simple as that. In some ways, despite the extensiveness of Mira's malformation, she was the luckier o the two. She did not understand what had been done to her, and so she did not know to be unhappy about it. Mira was aware that she was different from her caretakers, but it was a fact that did not trouble her overmuch. Ed on the other hand...Ed knew only too well what he was, and Kate couldn't even imagine what it must be like, coming to terms with the loss of one's humanity. She didn't think she could bear it.

"He's in quarantine, so he can't come play." Mira screwed her face up in distaste. She'd gone through quarantine when she first arrived, and hadn't liked it one bit.

"Is no good," she sighed, moving over to the shelf and pulling down one of her books. She brought it back and thrust it into Kate's hand.

"You want me to read you a story?" She asked. Mira couldn't read much at all beyond her own name a few simple words, but she loved being read to.

"Nono," Mira said, putting a hand on the cover. "For him, so no more sad. See?" She tapped the smiling turtle on the cover, "Happy."

Kate clutched the book to her chest, touched on Edward's behalf. "I'm sure he'll love it."

* * *

A day later found Roy and Alphonse creeping around the perimeter of the facility, searching for the small grate leading to the ventilation system the woman had told him about. They had decided on breaking in at night; there was no less security, but the cover of darkness would be to their advantage, and there would likely be less extraneous personnel wandering around. Jean was waiting a block down with the car --which Roy was almost certain had been procured through dubious means-- content enough to have been relegated to the role of getaway driver. Roy smiled slightly at the thought; it made it seem more like a heist than a rescue. Glancing around to make sure the perimeter patrol had not yet returned, Roy whistled softly to get Al's attention. The boy looked up and shook his head before returning to his search. The woman had said the grate was hard to find, even when you knew where to look.

The faint sound of voices alerted him to the return of the patrol. Swearing inwardly, Roy darted towards Al and snatched his wrist, dragging the startled boy into the shadow of an old shed. It wasn't an ideal hiding place and one of the guards would only have to turn his head to find them. Pressing back against the cold metal of the shed and shielding Alphonse with his own body should the worst come to pass, Roy raised a gloved hand and prepared for a fight. A few months ago he'd have been more than certain he could beat an enlisted man on the draw, so to speak, but he was woefully out of practice and he didn't want to take any chances.

"Man, these night shifts are garbage," grumbled one of the men as they drew close. Roy tensed, and he felt Alphonse's hand on his back.

The other patrolman sighed in agreement. "I can't wait till we get cycled back to days. Talk about murder on the social life."

"Ha! A girl wouldn't go near you with a ten foot pole!"

"Look who's talking, horse-face."

The men came into view and their banter bled into the background as Roy waited for any indication that they'd been spotted. His nerves thrummed on a knife's edge, every sense hyper-aware and one thought overrunning all others. _We can't get caught, Ed's counting on us._ Each second seemed to stretch out for an eternity, the few moments as the men drew level with them some of the longest of Roy's life. Just as it seemed the patrolmen would pass without incident, the one on the left glanced in their direction.

His eyes met the guardsman's, and Roy snapped before the man could cry out the alarm.

The fire was small but focused, designed to kill as quickly as possible. The man who had seen Roy managed a small, strangled cry. The other collapsed without a sound. The flames died as quickly as they'd begun, and Roy sighed and stepped out from the shadow of the shed, breathing shallowly against the stink of charred human flesh. No matter how many times he'd killed in this fashion, he never did manage to get used to the smell. "Keep looking, I'll take care of the bodies," he said gruffly. Alphonse didn't move, and Roy looked back at him to find the the boy staring at him, wide-eyed. Alphonse had seen a lot in his life, but he'd never seen Roy kill, and the last thing he needed right now was the boy freezing up on him because of it. "Al," he said as gently as he could manage, and Alphonse started. "I don't know how often those guards report in, but they're going to realize something is wrong sooner rather than later. If we don't do this, and fast, we're never getting Ed out of there."

His words seemed to bring Alphonse back to the task at hand, and the boy nodded, casting an uncertain glance at the two charred corpses before resuming his search. Roy returned his attention to the bodies, offering the men a silent apology as he began scratching a familiar array into the dirt around them. Killing them had not been the kindest route, but it had been the most efficient. Taking prisoners would have slowed them down, and attempting to incapacitate them would have given them ample time to sound the alarm. He'd made the right choice, but somehow Roy suspected that Alphonse wouldn't see it that way, even if they managed to save Edward in the end. With a sigh, Roy activated the array he'd had to use a thousand times during the war, watching as the charred bodies dissolved to ash. Insult to injury, perhaps, and if he'd had more time he would have at least left the bodies so that they might be returned to their families, but there was nowhere to hide them and once security started searching, they'd have pointed right to the site of the breach.

"Found it," Alphonse called quietly, and Roy scattered the remains and the lines of the array with his boot before hurrying over to Alphonse. The boy refused to look at him, peering instead into the grate. "It'll be a tight fit," he said, sticking his head inside. "And dusty. I should fit, but I'm not sure if you will." Alphonse was tall, but not terribly broad. However, his captivity had whittled Roy down considerably so there was a good chance that if Alphonse could fit, he'd be able to squeeze in as well.

"You go first," Roy said, glancing around warily. The area was quiet, and it didn't seem that they had been alerted to anything amiss. Yet. "I'll follow if I can. If not, follow the vent for about fifty feet; there should be an opening into an old storage room. From there, you'll have to go down three levels to the chimera quarantine facility; Edward's cell should be the last on the third row."

Al pulled his head out of the vent and looked up at Roy, nodding. With that, he stuck his head back inside and after a bit of wriggling, vanished inside. Roy waited a moment, not wanting to get a face-full of Al's feet and followed, wincing as his shoulder scraped a bolt. Tight squeeze was a bit of an understatement, but he'd manage. His stomach twisted uneasily at being crammed into such a small space, and Roy wondered if his captivity had given him a touch of claustrophobia. He smiled wryly at the thought, and then pushed such frivolous musings out of his head and focused instead on the mission at hand and on not breathing too much of the dust Alphonse kicked up in passing.

A few minutes passed and he heard Al stop, a rustle of movement and the scrape of a grate. Then Alphonse was gone, the thud of his landing from somewhere below. Roy pulled himself forward once again, feeling around for the lip of the vent. He crawled over it so he wouldn't have to go out head first, and after a bit of difficult maneuvering in the tight space he managed to drop down into the dark storeroom himself. He heard Alphonse moving around somewhere to his right and grunt in frustration. "I found the door, but it's locked. You have a flashlight?"

Roy did, and he pulled it from his pocket and switched it on, training it in Al's direction. The boy looked like a ghost in the white light, and he blinked once before turning back to the door and quickly scribbling an array on the steel surface with the chalk he never seemed to be without. A moment later and it was done, and he pressed his ear against the door, presumably listening for people outside. Once he was satisfied, he activated the array, and it flashed brightly for a moment before it died. Al turned the knob and the door swung open easily, light from the deserted hallway spilling into the storage room. Roy cocked an eyebrow at Alphonse, curious.

"Just melted the locking mechanism," he said by way of explanation, poking his head out into the hallway. "Comes in handy sometimes."

"I never knew you moonlighted as a burglar," Roy said, and the comment earned him a small smile.

"Brother would have just blown the door off its hinges," Al said, and his smile vanished. "We have to hurry."

Roy nodded and they stepped cautiously out into the hallway, Al closing the storage room door behind them. Roy looked around and tried to get his bearings based on the mental map the woman had provided him. The elevators required keycard access to operate, as did the door to the stairwell, but Al had proven that locked doors were no concern and the stairwell was more likely to be empty. So...left, towards the back of the building. He turned, walking at a brisk pace and Alphonse fell into step beside him. According to the woman, this wing was used entirely for storage, and as such was usually empty. True to her word, they encountered no one, researcher, guard, or otherwise and reached the stairwell unmolested.

Alphonse unlocked this door as easily as the last, and Roy took the stairs two at a time, passing a door labeled _B1 - Research and Development_. It sounded so innocuous, just like any other science facility, and the thought of what they were doing here, to Edward and to others who shared his unlucky fate made him ill. Halfway down the next flight of stairs an alarm blared to life, stopping the two of them in their tracks. They shared a look as the voice boomed over hidden speakers, "There has been a possible security breach. I repeat, possible security breach. All non-security personnel are to remain where they are and report any suspicious persons or activity immediately."

It appeared their grace period was over. Without a word, Roy and Alphonse resumed their downward dash, past the door labeled _B2 - Minimum Security Chimera Confinement_ to the one marked _B3 - Maximum Security Chimera Confinement and Quarantine_. Roy slammed through the door, stealth abandoned in favor of speed. A man in a white lab coat gaped as they ran past, and Roy payed him no mind. Scientists weren't the threat here, and it was only a matter of time before they were discovered, witness or not. The first two rows were confinement cells, and the third is where new or particularly sensitive chimera were kept under strict quarantine. Here they turned, and Roy heard shouting from behind them, one a thin, reedy wail, the other a barking snap that Roy recognized as orders even though he couldn't hear the words.

Alphonse skidded to a stop as they turned the corner, swiftly drawing an array on the white tiled floor. A flash of energy and the walls fused together, preventing further entry. "It won't hold them for long," Al said, getting to his feet. "We have to find Brother, fast."

There was shouting and pounding from behind the newly formed wall, and Roy nodded sharply. Edward was being held in the last cell on the row, so that's where they were going. A massive thud drew his attention to the first cell, where a creature all teeth and claws threw itself mindlessly against the observation window. This chimera wasn't the only one that appeared upset by the commotion; a cacophony of warped animal sounds and almost-human cries grew to the point where it was nearly deafening. Alphonse looked ill, and Roy took his arm, giving him a hard shake and drawing the boy along after him towards the door at the end of the hall.

Bursting through, Roy was startled to find himself face to face with his informant, who looked almost as surprised to see him. A moments hesitation and he drew his gun, the act only half-charade. It protected both of them; himself if she couldn't really be trusted, and her, when they undoubtedly reviewed the security footage. Her eyes widened in understanding and she threw her hands up, not moving from her seat at the desk. There was a large observation window, but all Roy could see was an indistinct shape beneath the blankets. "There?" He asked, jerking his head towards the window.

The woman nodded. "His arm is in that cabinet there," she said. "I imagine he'll want it back."

"Thank you," Alphonse said, voice strained but grateful, and went to retrieve it. Roy glanced over and frowned when Al pulled the gleaming metal appendage from the cabinet. It was odd, and no little morbid, seeing that arm without the body it was normally attached to.

They had no time to waste, and while part of him was wary at leaving her unrestrained, he supposed at this point it made little difference. Either they would escape, or they wouldn't. Through the double set of heavily reinforced doors and into the room, Roy was at the bedside in a instant, heart twisting at the sight that greeted him. Ed looked awful; not the unwashed and underfed awful he'd looked during their captivity, but something less tangible, something that made his stomach twist in sick fear that they'd come too late. "Ed," he called, shaking the boy. There was response, not a twitch, nothing. "Ed!" he bellowed, and he could nearly have cried in relief when his eyelids fluttered and opened, amber eyes peering at him, glazed and unseeing. "You shouldn't do that," Edward muttered, voice hoarse but working, and for a moment Roy was startled to hear a complete sentence out of his mouth. "Al will get mad."

Alphonse dashed to his side. "I'm not mad, Brother," he said, voice choked with emotion. Edward muttered something unintelligible in reply, and his eyes slid closed once more. Edward would definitely not be going anywhere under his own power, and Roy holstered his gun and scooped him up, the young alchemist looking so unnaturally frail in his white hospital pajamas.

"Alphonse--"

"We're on the east side of the building," Alphonse interrupted, tearing his worried gaze away from Edward long enough to survey the room. There was a crash and the sound of booted feet stomping down the hall. There wasn't much time. Al stared at the walls for a moment before going to one and hastily drawing an array. He activated it without preamble, and the whole building lurched, the earth shuddering and rearranging itself, and when the dust settled Roy was suddenly very glad he'd brought Al along.

A perfectly circular hole had been cut away from the wall, a tunnel rising at a steady incline and vanishing out of sight. Roy stepped inside, shifting Edward in his arms so that he wouldn't scrape the boy against the rough walls, and Al followed, closing a thick section of tunnel behind them and drenching them in darkness. A moment passed, and he felt Al fumbling about at his waist, looking for the flashlight. After accidentally groping him --a fact which Roy tactfully ignored-- he found what he was looking for. Light flooded the tunnel once again, and they continued their climb. The tunnel exited not twenty feet from where Jean waited with the car, and Roy silently applauded Al's accuracy. The nearby facility was remarkably quiet; a stark contrast to the wailing of alarms inside.

To his credit, Jean didn't look the least surprised, merely dropped the cigarette he held and got in the drivers seat as Roy dove into the back with Ed. Al scurried in beside him, and within moments they were pulling away from the warehouse. Alphonse hovered over Edward worriedly, one hand resting against his face. "He's sick," he said, distraught. "His skin is burning."

The plan had originally been to get out of Central and go as far as they could as quickly as they could, but Roy hadn't counted on Edward being physically ill. He needed a doctor, but there wasn't one Roy was willing to entrust Edward's safety to. So his only options were to continue with the original plan and hope whatever Edward had wasn't serious, or risk taking Edward to a doctor despite the dangers. He shifted Edward's weight into a more comfortable position, and paused, a thought striking. Maybe there was a third option. It was a long shot, and there was no guarantee she'd be able to help, but it was the only option he had. After all they'd gone through, he refused to lose Ed like this; chimera were notoriously prone to illness, and something mild in a human could be fatal in a chimera. It wasn't worth the risk. "Jean," he said, meeting the man's eyes in the mirror. "Change of plans. I know someone who can help us." He gave Havoc directions to a house on the south side of Central.

Alphonse glanced up, looking starkly terrified. "You're sure he can be trusted.?"

Roy considered the question. It was touchy territory, but if he knew one thing, it was that no matter her feelings on the matter she would never sell them out to the military. He rested a hand briefly on Edward's hair before looking Alphonse in the eyes. "I'm sure."


	11. Chapter 10

Notes: So. Um. Better late than never? XD My apologies to folks who've been waiting so long for me to get around to an update, I know the life of this story has certainly been erratic, and thanks for sticking it out. Updates for this and BIEH should be coming along at a far more reasonable pace after this (I know I've said this before, feel free to scoff, I won't be offended), as I've decided I'd like to get both stories finished as quickly as possible. After a bit of soul searching these last months, I've decided that I want to take my writing more seriously. So, I'm gonna take a crack at going pro, but I promised not to leave anything unfinished, and I won't. The sooner I finish my fics in progress, the sooner I can move to original projects guilt free! Hopefully my newfound motivation will benefit everyone!

Enjoy!

**::Chapter 10::**

It was an ordinary door, a door like any other; white paint chipping near the bottom and brass knob a little worn. The ordinary door led into an ordinary house, not big and not small, the facade giving little clue as to the person that dwelt within. Roy shifted Edward in his arms and rapped loudly on the door, knowing full well that he was nothing more than a giant _coward_, and if it had been anything less than Edward's health he'd never have come within a mile of this place. A light came on within, and Roy's back went ramrod stiff when he heard footsteps approach a few minutes later. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, but it was too late to back out now.

The door flew open and his sister bore down on him with all the fury of a hurricane; wrapped in a bathrobe, graying hair going every which way and not looking even slightly less intimidating for it. "This had better_ damn _well be an emergency," she ranted, jabbing her finger in Roy's face. "If you came pounding on my door in the middle of the goddamn night just to tell me that Molly had her...pups..." Samantha trailed off, squinting at him, and something in Roy's head told him maybe he should speak up, but he just couldn't seem to get his lips moving. Sam frowned, pulling a pair of glasses from the pocket of her robe and planting them on her nose. She took a startled step back, and then leaned forward, peering at him as though she didn't believe her own eyes. "...Roy?"

"Hi Sam," he managed, and was secretly quite proud of himself for getting that much out.

She blinked and snorted. "All this time, and _that's _the best you can manage? What the hell are you-" she cut herself off, taking note of Edward and the men standing nervously at his shoulder. "Get inside," she said sharply, glancing up and down the deserted street. "And close the drapes."

Roy nodded and moved past her, taking Edward into the living room and laying him gently on the couch. In spite of their differences, he couldn't deny that Sam had always been good to have around in an emergency. Samantha hurried into the room with Alphonse on her heels, peering down at Edward in concern. Jean joined them a moment later, nodding at Roy to indicate the area was secure. They were safe, for the time being.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, frowning at him and looking somewhere between concerned and angry.

Where to even begin? Sorry about the seventeen years of bad blood, but my friend here needs your help? Roy sighed. "He's sick."

"I can see that," Sam said brusquely, tucking her hands into the pockets of her tatty old robe and slanting a look at Roy that brooked no bullshit. "He should be resting at home, in bed. Or in a hospital if it's that bad. What is he doing on my couch?"

"Considering how much trouble we just went to to break him out of a high security military facility, I thought taking him to a public hospital might be a bad idea," Roy muttered, quashing a rising tide of irritation. Sam had every right to demand answers. "You were all I could think of."

Samantha's eyebrows crawled up towards her hairline as she sat on the edge of the couch and put a gentle hand to Edward's forehead. "I'm a vet," she said, but the venom had gone from her words. "Not a doctor. Human physiology isn't exactly my forte."

Roy sat on the arm of the couch and rubbed his face wearily. "His physiology isn't exactly human."

Sam's head snapped up and she looked at him sharply. "When you get yourself in trouble, you never do it halfway. You," she said, pointing at Alphonse, "get me a bowl of cold water from the kitchen. You," she turned her attention to Jean, "get me a cloth from the linen closet in the hall. "_You," _her gaze returned to Roy. "Start talking. Now."

Roy did so, giving her the simplest version of events he could. Sam didn't need to know all the gruesome details, but she did need to know Edward's situation if she was going to help him. She was uncharacteristically silent as he spoke, accepting the bowl and cloth with quiet thanks and putting a cold compress on Edward's head. She checked his pulse, retrieved a stethoscope and listened to his heart and breathing, and if Roy didn't know better, he'd have thought she was ignoring him entirely. When he finished she sighed and looked at him sidelong. "Well, never let it be said that you don't have guts. What animal?"

"A wolf," Roy replied, relaxing slightly. Part of him had worried that she might not help them, but she wasn't the type to let personal concerns cloud her judgment.

"Yes, yes, but what _kind?" _she asked impatiently, prying open Ed's eyes and peering at them closely. Ed didn't so much as twitch.

"I have no idea," Roy said, shaking his head. She was the animal nut, not him. How was he supposed to tell the difference? As far a Roy was concerned, a wolf was a wolf. "He's got spots, if that means anything. On his back."

"Spots?" she frowned, "I need to see; help me turn him over." Roy did so, careful not to jostle Ed too much and Sam lifted up the thin white fabric, took one look a the tattoo-like spotting and sighed. "That's a Briggs all right. How long did you say he was locked up alone?"

Roy wondered if it made a difference. "Nearly two months."

Sam winced. "That's a hell of a stretch." She dropped his shirt and carefully moved Ed onto his back again. "From what you told me and what I've seen, another few days, maybe a week, and he'd have been dead. Briggs don't do well in captivity; sometimes they survive if you can manage to capture a pair, but more often than not they just lay down and die. Wolves are social animals to begin with, but a Briggs just can't handle the separation from its pack."

The woman that had helped him rescue Ed had said something similar, and the possibility that they had rescued him only to lose him anyway was _not _a notion that Roy was prepared to entertain. "Will he be okay?"

Sam sighed explosively. "Shit Roy, I don't know. If he was actually a Briggs, I'd say not bloody likely. They can't function alone for long. If he was a wolf, his best chance would be to get him back to his pack as quickly as possible. He's not a wolf, though. He's a chimera, and that's something else entirely." She paused and peered at Ed thoughtfully. "His family might help, if you can get him to them. Being around the people he loves might be enough to snap him out of this, but I can't say for sure." A sigh. "There are just too many variables."

Alphonse spoke up up from where he'd been hovering worriedly over her shoulder. "I'm his brother," he said.

"Then that'll have to do," Sam said, tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear. She stood and muffled a yawn behind her hand. "Stay with him, talk to him, just...make your presence felt. Beyond that it's up to him."

Alphonse made a soft sound of distress, and Roy reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "Edward's a fighter, Al. He'll pull through." Roy believed that. He had to.

The younger Elric offered him a small, tight smile that didn't quite reach his eyes before grasping Edward's limp hand in his own. Sam watched the boys with an unreadable expression for a moment before saying, "There's nothing more we can do tonight, but at least I can give him a bed to sleep in."

Roy scooped up the unresponsive alchemist and took him to the guest room at Samantha's direction. The room was small and spare, with a distinctly disused air, and it hurt a bit to know that Ed's first night outside of a cage or a lab in so many months was going completely unnoticed. Slowly, carefully, Roy set Edward down on the bed and drew the blankets around him, hesitating a few moments before stepping away. He looked so...diminished, a pale shadow of the Ed he knew. The bed creaked loudly as Al crawled in beside his brother, resting his head against Edward's shoulder with a weary sigh.

It was a heartbreaking sight, and Roy turned off the light and stepped back out into the hallway with a small shake of his head. He'd done what he could, the rest was up to Edward; there was nothing left but to wait and hope. Damn, but some days he just felt so _old_.

Sam was waiting in the hallway, and she looked at the closed door for a thoughtful moment before turning her attention back to Roy. "I suppose we need to talk, but I don't have the energy to do it tonight," she said wearily, and Roy realized he wasn't the only one feeling his age. "There's extra blankets in the linen closet; you can fight with your friend over who gets the couch." She started off down the hall, but Roy stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"Thanks Sam." She smiled a little at that, but didn't reply, vanishing through the door at the end of the hall.

Worried, weary, and feeling decidedly useless, Roy went back downstairs.

Jean fell asleep quickly, curled up in the armchair, and Roy lay awake on the too-short couch, legs dangling over the arm and staring at the shadowed ceiling. He wanted to sleep, but his mind kept turning round and over in worried knots and refused to let him rest. Ed was safe for the time being. When he woke up -because Roy refused to believe he wouldn't- they were going to have to find some way to get him safely out of the city, because Central was a minefield of danger right now. The military had eyes everywhere, and they were going to have to be very, very careful.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there trying to find sleep, but when light began peeking through the drapes and he heard soft footfalls on the stairs, Roy decided it was time to give up the fight. He sat up, rubbing his hands wearily over his face before getting up and padding into the kitchen. Sam must've been the one he heard on the stairs, because he was there now, staring at a cup of tea like it held all the answers. "Morning," he said, and she started, blinking up at him.

Looking at her now, with the urgency of the night before behind them, she seemed older than he'd expected. There was more gray than black in her hair anymore, and lines in her face he didn't remember. It seemed wrong until he realized that a lot could change in a couple of decades, and she must be on the far side of forty by now. He was hardly the sixteen year-old kid she probably remembered, and the weight of the years settled heavily on his shoulders at the thought. Their fight seemed such a trivial thing, now.

"You're up early," she observed, something in her voice even and carefully neutral; something that wasn't like her at all.

"Couldn't sleep," Roy replied, sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs and distantly thankful his exhaustion was keeping him from feeling too awkward.

"You look like shit," she commented, and Roy smiled faintly. That _did _sound like her.

"You should have seen me two months ago," he quipped, and her lips tightened in a frown.

"That was all over the papers," she said, pausing to take a sip of her tea.

Roy was surprised; not that his abduction had made the news, but that she'd noticed and he said as much. Sam scowled. "Dammit Roy, just because we haven't said a civil word to each other in a couple decades doesn't mean I don't _care. _What do you take me for?"

Startled by her vehemence, Roy blinked a few times before saying slowly, "I didn't mean it like that." Except that he had, actually, and now he felt like a bit of an ass.

She snorted softly. "Right. So, what do you plan on doing with your young alchemist if he snaps out of it?"

Neatly changing the subject. "I'm not sure," Roy said honestly. He'd entertained the notion of holing up somewhere north, but he just hadn't had time to give it any serious consideration. "But we'll have to drop completely out of sight. We can't go anywhere they'll think to look."

"I don't want you to think I'm kicking you out," Sam said, tapping a finger slowly against the side of her mug. "I'm always good for sticking one to the military, but you must realize they're going to be pounding on my door any time now?"

This was one point where their long estrangement was going to work in his favor. "You aren't in my file."

Brows dipping in a slight frown, she asked, "How did you manage that? I thought they keep records on all immediate family."

"Typically, yes. But I was, ah, still upset with you when I enlisted. So when I was filling out the paperwork I may have neglected to mention any siblings." Who would have imagined something he'd done out of childish spite would turn out to be a boon all these years later?

Samantha chuckled and shook her head. "Well, that's one less thing to worry about." She picked up her now empty mug and took it to the stove where the kettle rested, glancing back at Roy over her shoulder. "Tea?"

* * *

The scent was familiar, but one Ed couldn't quite place. It was human, but male, so it couldn't be Dr. Arcourt. Overlapping the individual scent was that of soap and a faint hint of stale cigarettes. Havoc? No, it sort of smelled like Havoc, but it wasn't. So who?

The curious puzzle wrestled Edward from his lethargy, and he realized that the constant buzz of fluorescent lights was conspicuously absent, along with the antiseptic smell that he'd grown so accustomed to. Cracking his eyes open, he squinted against dim light and stared in bleary confusion at an unfamiliar ceiling. Had they moved him out of quarantine? No, that made no sense. He continued to stare at the ceiling while his thoughts swam in sluggish circles until he became aware of the slow, even breathing at his side. Feeling strangely disconnected, he looked over to find Alphonse curled awkwardly into his side, the top of his brother's head resting against his ribs.

He stared. That couldn't really be him, could it? Another dream perhaps, but something felt too sharp, real, and he didn't remember ever feeling so god-fucking-awful in the dreams. "Al?" he croaked.

Alphonse started upright, staring at Edward with impossibly wide eyes. "Brother?" They stared at each other for a beat and then Al was clinging to him and crying, babbling nonsense through his tears and now Ed knew why he should have recognized the scent.

Edward snatched Al's shirt, halfway terrified he'd finally lost his mind, and mumbled into his little brother's hair, "Are you real?"

Alphonse laughed unsteadily, the sound a little sickly. "I'm real."

The last thing he remembered was his room in the research facility; fleeting impressions of misery and a worried doctor and a haze of dreams as he sunk further and further from himself. He wanted so, so badly for this to be real and not another comforting lie conjured by a failing mind. Edward buried his face in Al's hair and just focused on breathing, on the sound and feel and smell of him. His body ached, his muscles weak and he was _starving_ and thirsty as all hell but he didn't want to move. Afraid that if he did Al would be gone, and it would _break _him to lose his little brother again.

He couldn't bear to be alone again.

How much time passed he wasn't sure, but Alphonse was the first to break the desperate grip, moving back enough so they could look each other in the eye. Ed resisted the urge to squirm, to avert his gaze. His eyes still bothered him; they were something inhuman, and he didn't want Alphonse to see that. Ed realized that if they were together again then that meant Al _knew _and he couldn't look at him anymore, dropping his eyes and staring resolutely at the blanket. Al sighed heavily, and there was an odd note in his voice when he spoke. "I bet you're hungry. Let's go see if we can get something to eat. Jean and Roy will want to know you're awake, too. Last night we weren't...well, we weren't too sure you were going to wake up at all."

All Edward heard was Roy. His head shot up, eyes wide and he needed to _go. _"Roy's here?" There was a note of desperation in his voice that made Ed wince. God, he sounded pathetic.

Al's expression softened a little. "Yeah, he's downstairs. Probably still asleep." Alphonse seemed to realize that Edward needed to see the older man without words, and he said, "C'mon, I don't think he'll mind if we wake him up."

Edward swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, stumbling when his legs didn't quite want to support his weight. Al reached out to steady him, and Ed growled savagely, suddenly furious at his own weakness. Al's hand vanished, and Ed looked up to see Al staring at him wide-eyed, a tiny thread of fear weaving through his scent. Distraught, Ed shook head, hard. Not his brother, he couldn't bear it if Al was _afraid _of him. "I wasn't-- not at you. I'm just...frustrated. Nothing seems to work right. Fuck," he sighed. "I don't blame you for being afraid of me, but I'd never hurt you Al. Never you."

"Brother," Alphonse said, scooting closer and nudging shoulders. "I'm not afraid of you, how could you think that?"

Ed smiled bitterly at the lie. It was still there, a tendril of nervousness, uncertainty. "I can smell it."

"...What?"

"Fear, nerves, whatever. It changes your scent." Edward tried not to think about how that sounded.

"You can...smell me?" The fear was dwindling, and Ed relaxed a little. He really couldn't blame Al for being a little nervous after hearing his brother snarling like an angry dog.

"Yeah. It's kinda hard to explain, but ever since...uh," he couldn't bring himself to say it. "My sense of smell has been through the roof. I can distinguish people by their individual scent, and I can tell you what they had for lunch, or--" he broke off, derailed by something he'd noticed earlier. "Why do you smell like Havoc?"

Alphonse turned a very peculiar shade of red. "What?" he asked faintly.

"You smell like Havoc, a little." It was probably scent transfer; he'd noticed the phenomenon with Dr. Arcourt. Every time he saw her, Ed could tell what who --or what-- she'd been in contact with before she'd come to see him. He'd also been able to tell when she was on her monthly or if she'd recently had sex, which was _extremely_ disconcerting. There were some things he just didn't need to know about a person.

"Oh...uh, I've been staying with him the last few months. Maybe that's why?"

"Probably," Ed agreed, pleased to have solved that little mystery. He tried standing again, and this time his legs were a touch more cooperative. After a quick detour to the bathroom, in which Ed marveled at the novelty of taking a piss in privacy, they went downstairs. Alphonse hovered over his shoulder anxiously, but Ed's legs were finally getting the hang of this walking thing, and he made it down the stairs without incident. He glanced into the living room where Havoc slept in an armchair, but then he caught Roy's scent, followed a moment later by the sound of his voice and Ed followed them into the kitchen.

Roy's back was to him as he entered, but he must have made some noise because the older man twisted in his chair, looking at first startled, and then pleased. The tatters of Edward's pride dissolved entirely upon seeing that face, and he threw himself into Roy's arms, clinging to the man and burying his face in Roy's neck, heedless of the stares of his brother and the unfamiliar female. "I waited," he whispered fiercely, tangling his fingers in newly-shortened hair. "I knew you'd come, I _knew _it, it was the only thing that kept me sane, and I waited for as long as I could." Ed was babbling, he knew it, but he didn't care much at the moment.

Arms tightening around him, Roy said, "I'm sorry I left you there for so long."

Edward shook his head minutely. "You came," he said simply. That was all that mattered. Roy hadn't let him down, and the anxiety that had been Ed's constant companion for so long finally, finally began to dissipate.

Someone cleared their throat, and Edward realized how awkward they must look. He reluctantly disentangled himself from Roy, settling into the nearest chair and staring mistrustfully at the female. He didn't recognize her, or the house, which meant that it was likely hers, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of her. The idea of being in a stranger's territory was unsettling.

Roy caught his stare, and said, "Ed, this is my sister, Samantha. I told you about her, remember?"

He did remember, and she cocked a questioning eyebrow at Roy that was almost the mirror of the man's own expression. He saw the resemblance now that he looked. "I thought you weren't talking?" he asked, curious.

"We weren't," Samantha replied with a wry smile, "Until he turned up on my doorstep last night with you. How do you feel?"

"Like shit," Ed replied honestly. He felt a bit like he'd been hit with a bus and then run over twice more for good measure. "Hungry."

"So you have an appetite, that's a good sign." She stood and moved towards the icebox. "I'll get you--" she paused, cutting herself off and looking back at Ed. "What do you eat?"

Her question echoed the one Dr. Arcourt had asked him months ago, but this time he knew how to answer. "I can eat anything." He wasn't about to tell them he'd developed a taste for raw meat. They might know what he was now, but he wasn't comfortable displaying anything that drew attention to it, not if he could avoid it. Samantha nodded and pulled some eggs from the icebox, busying herself at the stove.

Alphonse sat in the chair she'd vacated, and Roy said, "You're speaking much better now."

That was one thing, at least, he was grateful to the lady doctor for. Fuck if he wanted to spend the rest of his life grunting like a goddamn caveman. "The change warped my vocal cords," he said. Among other things. "When she realized that was the problem, she put me through speech therapy." Ed grimaced. That had been embarrassing, even if the end result was more than worth the effort. His voice still had that too-deep, raspy quality, but that would never go away.

"I'm glad that's all it was," Roy said softly. "You scared the shit out of me at first."

"_You _were scared?" Ed snorted, although he felt warmed anyhow. "I could barely put two thoughts together."

"But you're okay now?" Al asked anxiously, and Ed frowned slightly. He was alive, and with his mind more or less intact, which was more than he could have expected. Ed wasn't sure he'd call himself 'okay' though. He only felt so calm because he was surrounded by pack; by Roy and Al. Ed doubted he'd ever be functional alone again.

"Sort of," he muttered, and was saved Al's response by a plate of scrambled eggs deposited in front of his face. His stomach rumbled impatiently and Ed barely managed to squeeze out a thanks before snatching up his fork-- and stopping. He couldn't eat. There was the most bizarre sensation that it wasn't his _turn _yet, and Ed frowned. This was new. He looked at Roy helplessly, wondering what the fuck his malfunction was. He was hungry, dammit, but he just couldn't bring himself to eat.

Samantha was watching him, gaze darting back and forth between himself and Roy thoughtfully. "Take a bite, Roy."

Roy blinked at her, forehead creasing in confusion. "What?"

"Humor me," she said. "I think I know why he won't eat."

Shrugging, Roy took Ed's fork and stabbed at a bit of fluffy egg, taking a bite and returning the fork to Ed. Just like that, the peculiar barrier was gone, and Edward dug in with gusto, devouring the eggs far too quickly. He felt dissatisfied when he was finished, but he knew that he hadn't eaten much of anything in a week or better, and he'd probably just make himself sick if he ate as much as he wanted to.

"What was that all about?" Roy asked when he was finished.

"Dunno," Edward shrugged. "It's never happened before." He'd never had trouble eating before, although he'd lost his appetite towards the end. This was different, though.

Roy turned his attention to Samantha, who was smiling slightly. "You know though, don't you?"

She chuckled. "It was just a guess, but the alpha always eats first. He couldn't eat because his alpha," she inclined her head at Roy, "was present, but hadn't eaten yet himself."

Ed dipped his head, the part of his brain that actually understood all the bizarre shit happening to him affirming that was precisely the reason. Eating before his alpha was disrespectful at best, and could be construed as a challenge at worst. And he certainly had no desire to challenge Roy for the position. "Oh hell," he muttered. The fact that he hadn't consciously realized it before now made no difference. Roy was his alpha, and maybe that explained why he felt so acutely anxious when he wasn't around.

Roy however, hadn't quite caught on. "In words I'll understand?"

"The alpha is the leader of a wolf pack," Samantha explained. "It's not surprising that he'd cast you in that role. After all, you're bigger than he is," Ed bristled slightly at that but said nothing. Couldn't argue with the truth. "Older than he is, you were his CO for years, and you're used to being the boss. A pretty ideal candidate for an alpha, if you look at it from a human perspective."

Edward shifted awkwardly. She was right, not that it had been any sort of logical choice on his part, but the discussion was uncomfortable. Right or not, she was shining a bright, glaring light on the fact that he wasn't exactly human anymore. A fact that he was going to have to learn to live with, sooner rather than later. Ed cast a glance at Roy, wondering if the man realized just how much Ed had been screwed up between the ears. Probably not. They'd probably chalk his behavior up to a few wolfish idiosyncrasies, but it ran far deeper than that. The person he used to be was gone, dead, and he wasn't ever coming back. Ed stared down at the floor, unseeing. He wasn't okay. He was so far from okay he wasn't even sure that he remembered what okay looked like.

Giving up though, that wasn't an option. Ed had already gone down the lay down and die road, and it wasn't something he'd let happen again. He had Al, and he had Roy, and whoever or whatever he was now, well, he could learn to deal with it. He wasn't okay, but maybe, in time, he would be.


	12. Chapter 11

Notes: There! A month is MUCH better than the typical wait has been for this story, no? Would have been finished sooner, but you know how the holidays go. It looks like Dichotomy is going to finish up in four more chapters, putting us at fifteen total. Provided it doesn't take off unexpectedly on me. :)

Took some liberties with Havoc's backstory in this chapter, although I'm not sure if there's any official information on that front or not.

Much love to my reviewers!

**::Chapter 11::**

_The metal table was ice cold, and Edward arched away from it, hissing softly as Bear snapped metal restraints into place around his wrist and ankle, securing the leather one tightly over his middle. Ed tugged halfheartedly at the restraints, the resistance a token one at this point. He knew they were more than secure enough to hold him. Bear vanished from his line of sight to be replaced by the bastard himself, the man clutching a clipboard and making notations on who knew what. Ed drew a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. He'd always hated needles, but since coming here he'd grown to loathe them._

_The bastard vanished and returned a moment later, a needle in hand but not the small syringe Ed was used to. Pride was the only thing keeping the alarm off his face as Markham approached with a needle as long as his arm and thick as a finger. He couldn't mean to use it, could he? The thing was practically a sword! "You aren't using that for my injection, are you?" he asked, congratulating himself on sounding unconcerned. After seeing that monster, the usual needle suddenly seemed a lot nicer, hallucinogenic drugs or no._

_Markham blinked at him over the top of his glasses. "This? No, no. Of course not." Edward relaxed marginally, but his relief was short lived. Markham advanced on him, the expression of bored indifference he wore mutating into one of hateful malice. "This is just to make you suffer."_

_Edward tried to to struggle, shout, but a strange paralysis washed over him, stilling his movement and stealing his words. Between one blink an the next, Alphonse was standing at his side, looking down at him with soulful eyes. He reached out, threading icy fingers through Ed's own and said, "Don't struggle, Brother. It'll only hurt more if you do."_

_Markham leaned over him, smiling in a way that was almost friendly. "Not that it matters, right? You only an animal after all." A twitch of the hand and he slammed the needle into Edward's eye, driving it deep, deeper, an anguished howl torn from his throat._

Edward came awake with a jerk, hair plastered to his neck with sweat and limbs trembling. He scrambled upright, disoriented, heart beating wildly in his chest.

The bed was empty.

He was alone.

Alone, _alone. _The emptiness pressed in on him like a vise and he whined. It was just a nightmare, he tried to tell himself, but the truth did nothing to lessen his anxiety.

Footsteps, running, and Ed went tense all over, backing against the headboard and growling when the door slammed open. "Ed? Are you okay?"

Roy, he realized after a beat, and relaxed with weary relief. Roy walked over to the bed, and as soon as he was close enough Ed launched himself into the other man's arms, the need for comfort and contact far outweighing the need to maintain his battered pride. Roy's presence went a long way towards calming him, and after a few minutes Ed muttered, "So much for sleeping alone." Couldn't even take a nap by himself without having a god damned panic attack. He was recovered enough to be embarrassed and was glad the other man couldn't see his face. "How did you know?" he asked against Roy's shirt.

"You were howling," Roy replied, and Ed winced. Howling. Damn.

_"You're only an animal, after all."_

Ed snarled under his breath, pulling away from Roy and shaking his head hard. It was just a nightmare; something that'd been a fact of his existence for as long as he could remember. Hell, this wasn't even one of the worst. Not by a long shot. If only he could get a grip on this bizarre emotional up and down that caused him to overreact to _everything. _Animal instinct and human personality had collided in a way that left him a complete wreck, and his attempts to find some sort of stable ground between those alien needs and stiff pride were failing rather spectacularly.

Sliding off the bed, Edward glanced sidelong at Roy. He should hate being so dependent on another person, but the best he could seem muster was a token bit of disgruntled annoyance. He was changing so much and so rapidly, Ed wondered how long it would be before he looked in the mirror and found a complete stranger staring back.

* * *

The room was spare; two chairs, one table, and a too-bright light were the only furnishings it boasted. The paint on the walls was faded and peeling, and the mirror that dominated one wall was starkly out of place in the otherwise the shabby, dingy room.

It was designed to be unsettling, she knew that. Stark, spare, and unfriendly. They'd dragged her here and left her alone for hours without a word of explanation, and that too was designed to unsettle her. They watched her from behind the mirror, gauging her discomfort, her guilt. They had no proof, of course. If they did then they wouldn't have bothered with this farce; she'd already be in a cell or on a table. So Kate refused to give them anything, staring resolutely ahead and keeping her hands clasped in her lap, waiting. If Keats thought he could crack the patience of a scientist, he was sorely mistaken.

It wasn't long before he evidently reached the same conclusion, and the door creaked open, permitting her a glimpse of armed guards beyond as the general entered with an manila folder tucked under his arm and a grim set to his lips. He sat down in the other chair and placed the folder on the table, leaning back and regarding her with a closed expression.

Right then. Time to raise the curtain on their little drama.

"General," she said, allowing a bit of frustration to creep into her tone. If she played this right, she might still get out with her skin intact. "What's going on?"

He didn't answer, but she hadn't expected him to. Instead, Keats flipped open the envelope and placed a fuzzy photograph in front of her. It was taken from the security camera at the entryway of the office building in which Mustang worked, from the day she'd slipped the note in his box. The photo quality was bad, but not so awful that she could deny the woman in the photograph was her. Damn. "This was taken from security footage outside the north office three weeks ago. You were inside for less than five minutes. What was your purpose there?"

Kate pretended to examine the photo. She had an excuse, but she doubted it would satisfy him. "I was there to ask a friend to lunch," she said. "But the secretary was too busy to call up for me, and civilians don't have clearance to go through security. So I left."

"I see," Keats said, and his tone implied he thought she was lying. No big surprise there, considering she was. "And the name of this...'friend'?"

"Corporal Lancaster." True in that she and Emily did have lunch together from time to time. It would hold up if he checked. "Sir, what's this all about?" Kate knew the answer, and Keats was probably aware of that, but she had to keep up appearances. Had to cast enough doubt.

Keats pulled out a stack of papers that she recognized as her notes on Edward. "I've been going through your notes, and you frequently expressed concern aboutElric's well-being. Why is that?"

"He was a vital asset to the project, why wouldn't I be concerned with his health?" Somehow, despite the fact that it had landed her in some decidedly hot water, Kate couldn't bring herself to regret helping Edward escape. "Sir, are you accusing me of somehow...aiding his escape?" It was hard to sound outraged instead of just plain tired, but Kate did her best.

"Am I wrong?"

"Of course!" She sighed and offered him a dry smile. "I generally try to avoid shooting myself in the foot, as it were."

"Indeed." Keats set down her noted and leaned forward slightly, resting his arms on the table. It creaked loudly under his weight. "Why didn't you fight back when they entered the observation room?"

It was such a ridiculous question that Kate could only stare at him for a moment. Even if she was innocent, she wouldn't have fought back. "How exactly could a scientist with no combat training hope to overcome two highly skilled alchemists, one of whom was also a trained soldier? I'm not suicidal."

Keats hummed to himself and nodded, as though she'd confirmed something. He gathered the photo and the notes, tucking them back into the folder as he stood. "This has been most enlightening, Dr. Arcourt." He gave her a curt nod and left, leaving her alone once more in the dismal little room.

Kate sighed and leaned back in her chair, staring up at the too bright light and wondering if there was any way she was getting out of this.

* * *

After his little episode, Ed hadn't been able to muster the urge to do much of anything. He also wasn't feeling compelled to seek out other company, which resulted in him curling up against Roy's leg while the man read, staring at the wall and trying to think about nothing in particular. Edward wiggled the fingers on his automail hand, focusing on the sharp discomfort the movement generated as a way to distract himself. He'd had his arm back for the better part of a week, but after being so long without, his nerves were lodging some serious protest. It wasn't as bad as when he'd first gotten the arm, but the dull pain was proving to be a constant irritant.

He considered retrieving one of the books on wolves that Sam had lent him, but laziness and general apathy won out. He was mostly done with them anyway, and while the books had certainly proven enlightening, the parallels Ed had drawn between what the books described and his own behavior were somewhat troubling.

For example, being around so many other people for the first time since his change was drawing all sorts of instincts to the fore and causing Edward no end of trouble. The most persistent of these troubles was the sense of hierarchy Ed could not shake, the firm notion that they all had their place in his screwed-up little pack, and the mounting frustration that he was the only who saw it, or cared. The irony was not lost on him that someone who had once taken perverse pleasure in flouting authority and disregarding chain of command was now mired in it. Edward smiled grimly at the wall. He didn't believe in a higher power, but if there was one, the bastard had a sick sense of humor.

Worse, because he was the only one who seemed to notice, those around him continued to defy his efforts to properly categorize them, something he found endlessly frustrating. At least Roy seemed to be holding firm to the position of Alpha, though there were times when it seemed like Al was challenging him for the role. That was something to be grateful for, at least. The more he learned, the more he realized that having a solid alpha presence was largely the only thing keeping him so grounded, although it did present some unique challenges. Like the stupid, maddening impulse to defer to Roy in _everything. _If he wasn't paying attention, it was ridiculously easy to fall into the 'Alpha Knows Best' mentality, such a blatant left turn from his typical behavior that Ed found it deeply disturbing.

The time since his rescue had been a mixed bag. Ed was fairly certain he'd reached a sort of mental equilibrium; what he was now was likely what he'd be for the rest of his life. If only he could get used to it, instead of swinging wildly around the mood spectrum like a pregnant woman. It could be worse. It could be so much worse, but Ed couldn't help but feel he'd lost an integral piece of himself, the independence he'd once valued so highly all but gone, buried beneath the need for contact, touch. Hell, he couldn't even sleep without someone at his side anymore. It was humiliating and exhausting. Edward sighed heavily. Some days he couldn't figure out if he was lucky, or if he'd gotten the short end of the chimera stick. At least if he was a ravening monster, he wouldn't be aware of what had happened to him. Probably.

"Ed?" Roy's legs shifted slightly under his head, and Edward rolled onto his back, stretching his legs to dangle over the arm of the couch and looking up at Roy. The man was ignoring the book in his hand -one of the ones on wolves Samantha had lent him- in favor of giving Ed a mildly concerned stare. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Ed huffed, mostly lying but not caring. It was close enough. "Just bored." That was true at least. As much as he loved a good cuddle anymore, a fact he would die before admitting to anyone outside his own head, he was starting to get a little restless being cooped up inside all the time. He understood they couldn't risk him being seen, recognized, but it still chafed. He'd spent enough time locked away, dammit. He was forgetting what the sun looked like.

Roy set his book down on the end table, draping one arm over Edward's chest. Ed smiled faintly in spite of himself. If anything good had come from this, it was the easy familiarity he now shared with the man. A year ago he wouldn't have believed it possible, but so many things had changed since then. It seemed like another lifetime. "You and me both," Roy said. "It'll be better once we're out of the city. Won't be long now."

General Keats seemed to believe they had fled Central, and that belief was mirrored in the dwindling security on the streets of the city. The official story, of course, was some nonsense about an escaped convict. No sense in throwing the populace into a tizzy over over the possibility of a dangerous monster on the streets. Ed's smile faded. Oh no, a monster of the human variety was much less frightening. He sighed again and forced the thought away roughly. Fear was something he needed to get used to, because it wasn't going to go away. He was a predator now, down to his bones, and no matter what lengths he went to to smother the fact, it still shone through. The hunter in him touched something old and primal in humans, instincts buried deep in subconscious that recognized him for what he was, and wrenched out that fight or flight response, the base, fearful instinct of self preservation.

He looked up at Roy, who had returned to his book, and asked, "Why aren't you afraid of me?" Ed winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, giving himself a good, hard mental kick for his idiocy. Sure, he wanted to know, but he hadn't actually meant to ask.

Roy looked at him, genuinely startled. "What?"

"Forget it," Ed muttered, pulling away. Roy caught him before he could escape however, tugging Ed back onto the couch.

"Why would you ask something like that?" he asked softly, book once more abandoned in favor of Ed. Grumbling inwardly, Ed cursed his big fat mouth and looked around. The room was empty. He could hear Al and Jean in the kitchen, their individual scents lost under the stronger aroma of garlic and cooking meat. Samantha was still at work. They were alone, and judging by the look he was getting from Roy, Ed wasn't going to wriggle his way out of this.

"Because everyone else is," he sighed, giving in. That wasn't quite true; Samantha wasn't, and Kate hadn't been either, but Edward suspected that had to do with a long familiarity with predators on the part of both women. Sam seemed to have a healthy respect for what he was capable of, but that wasn't fear. Just good sense.

Roy shook his head. "That's not true."

"It is," Ed insisted. He appreciated what Roy was trying to do, and maybe the man even believed it, but Ed's nose didn't lie. "Al and Havoc are, although less now than at first." It still hurt unbearably that he frightened Al, even on an instinctive level, but at least it was diminishing. "They know. People. They know what I am and it scares them," he sighed, trying to articulate his thoughts in a way that would make sense to Roy. "It's like walking through through the forest and suddenly stumbling over...a bear." He'd almost said wolf, but thought better of it. "Not a logical fear, but that gut feeling you get when you're facing something with big teeth and an appetite. Something that could kill you, not out of malice," Ed struggled to keep his voice even, to pretend he wasn't talking about himself. "but because it's simply in its nature to do so. It's like that. People recognize me as a predator, and it scares them even if they don't know why. I was just wondering why you weren't." He shrugged, trying to pretend it was nothing. "Just curious."

He could feel Roy's eyes on him, and when he dared look, the dark gaze was startlingly intense, if unreadable. "Do you really think of yourself that way?"

"It doesn't matter what I think, it's the truth," Edward said with a sigh, wishing he hadn't brought it up. "I don't know how to explain it to you, it's just..." -_\- _"There."

"I don't know why I'm not afraid," the other man said at length. "It never occurred to me that I should be."

Ed nodded, accepting the answer. It was a stupid question anyway, not one he'd actually intended to ask. He was really just grateful for it. Roy's presence was a soothing balm, the single spot of calm in the maelstrom of his existence. Ed honestly couldn't imagine being able to function without him. "Thanks," he said quietly, staring down at his hands.

"For what?"

"For everything," Ed said, not looking up. He wasn't good at this emotional stuff on the best of days, but Roy deserved to hear it. He wasn't sure he'd said it before.

An arm looped around his shoulders, drawing him in for a rough, sideways hug. "You're welcome," Roy said against his hair, and Ed relaxed into him, not quite able to suppress a pleased rumble at the contact.

* * *

Teaching Jean to cook was, Alphonse was beginning to suspect, a lost cause. He followed instructions well enough, but somehow if Al looked away for more than a moment, Jean managed to create some sort of miniature disaster. Today was shaping up to be no different, and while Al lifted the lid on the pot roast to check on it, Jean let out a sharp string of curses to his right. Startled, Al glanced over, hastily slamming the lid back down when he realized Jean was clutching his hand, blood streaming _everywhere. _Alarmed, Al darted over and pushed the older man towards the sink, grabbing one of the dish towels as he did so. "Are you okay?" he asked, running cold water over Jean's hands and watching the blood drain away in a pink swirl.

Jean smiled at him sheepishly, one hand still clutched over the wound. "Yeah, yeah. Just nicked myself with the knife," he said, and Al was doubtful. That was way too much blood for a nick.

"Let me see," he ordered, and Jean reluctantly complied, a fresh pulse of blood washing down the sink as he unclasped his hands. Al winced at the deep gash across one of the fingers. Just a nick. Right. He snorted softly, wrapping the cloth around the still bleeding finger and hauling Jean to the kitchen table. "Sit," he commanded, and went to get Sam's med kit from the hall closet. He thought he remembered seeing bandages in there.

Roy and Ed were on the couch in the living room, looking quite...cozy, and Al furiously shoved down the sharp stab of jealousy at the sight. His brother was entitled to cuddle with whomever he cared to, and if that someone was Roy more than it was him...well. It was stupid to get jealous over something so silly. At least, that's what Al kept telling himself, but it didn't seem to do much more than make him feel like a jerk. Certainly didn't stop him from being jealous. Wasn't he the one who was always trying to get his brother to open up to other people? Make friends?

"I smell blood," Edward said, sitting upright, brows furrowed in concern. "Everything okay?"

Something in Al tittered nervously. His brother could _smell _the blood. "Jean just cut his finger," Al said, firmly shoving _that_ undeserved emotion into the mental dungeon with his jealousy where they both belonged. He was better than that.

His brother nodded and sank back to where he'd been resting against Roy, and Al sighed slightly and retrieved the bandage from Samantha's med kit, pointedly not-looking at his brother as he passed. Maybe Brother spent so much time around Roy because he was the only one who seemed to have no malfunction, Al thought a little bitterly. He loved his brother no matter what, but he was just so damned _unnerving_ sometimes. It was the little things that stood out sharpest. The way he'd sometimes go so still, tracking someone or something with an intense stare. The things he picked up by smell alone. The way he'd growl when frustrated. The sense that Ed was almost dangerous, something _other, _a feeling Al couldn't seem to shake. Roy seemed to be the only one completely unaffected. Small wonder Ed preferred his company.

Suddenly quite disheartened, Al returned to the kitchen and patched up Jean's finger absently, the day's good humor evaporated. It wasn't his brother's fault that he was what he was, and it wasn't Ed's fault that Al was dealing with it so poorly, either.

"What's wrong, kiddo?" Jean asked, tapping the back of Al's hand to get his attention. "You're a million miles away."

"Ah," Alphonse shook his head, wrenching himself from the mire of his thoughts. "It's-" he hesitated, watching the other man across the table for a moment. What could it hurt? "I'm just being an idiot," he confessed miserably.

Jean raised his eyebrows in question, and when Alphonse didn't elaborate, he asked, "What do you mean?"

Al shook his head, not sure what to say. He glanced towards the living room with a frown, and when he looked back Jean nodded. "Ah. Jealous?"

"What? No!" Al squawked, then winced at his own reaction. "Maybe a little. Like I said, I'm being an idiot. I mean, I'm the one who's always trying to get him to make more friends, spend time with people that aren't me. It's good for him. So, I don't know why it bothers me. I mean, it's not like he's ignoring me or anything, it's just...I don't know. Different." Alphonse sighed, letting his head fall to the tabletop with a loud thump and a dull throb. He was babbling. "It's stupid."

Alphonse heard the rustle of packaging, and he looked up to see Jean tuck a cigarette between his lips, unlit. He was looking at nothing in particular, expression thoughtful. "You know," he said after a moment, "I've got an older brother too. And man, when we were kids we were inseparable. Far as I was concerned, my big bro was invincible, and I followed him around like a puppy." He chuckled and rested his chin on his hand, meeting Al's eyes. "Two peas in a pod, we were. Then all of a sudden, he's got no more time for his kid brother. I went from being his best buddy to an annoyance out of the blue. After a few weeks of this, I follow him one night, and caught him meeting with a _girl._" He said the word like it was something nasty, and Al smiled a little. "I couldn't believe it. I mean, didn't he know that girls have cooties?"

"Cooties?" Al repeated in amused disbelief.

Jean sat up straight and shrugged with a grin. "Yup. _Cooties. _Anyway, I figured this girl was the source of all my problems. If I got rid of her, me and my brother could go back to being buds again. Sorry to say I terrorized the poor girl. Put frogs in her lunch box, pelted her with mud balls, that sort of thing."

"You didn't!"

"Oh, sure. I was a regular delinquent. Needless to say, when my brother found out what I was doing, he kicked the shit out of me." Jean shook his head slightly. "Guess what I'm trying to say is that you're not an idiot. A little sibling jealousy isn't all that unusual. Just gotta remember that he's not going anywhere. You two are closer than any two people I've ever met, and just because he's sweet on Mustang doesn't mean that's going to change."

Alphonse nodded. Jean was absolutely- wait, what? _Sweet _on Mustang? "What?"

Jean blinked. "Uh. Well. Don't take it the wrong way, just seems that way to me, but I'm a lousy judge of these sorta things anyway." He scratched the back of his head and glanced away, looking acutely embarrassed.

Could that really be it? He'd never even considered the possibility that his brother's feelings for Roy were anything other than platonic, but what if Jean was right? Alphonse wasn't quite sure how he felt about the possibility. He'd always sort of expected that his brother would eventually get his head out of his ass and marry Winry. It had seemed inevitable, but now...well. Probably not. Al stared down at his hands and finally understood that nothing was going to be the same. He'd known, logically, that they couldn't go home. Too dangerous. Only, knowing wasn't the same as accepting, and he now realized with sickening clarity the enormity of the situation. Even if they managed to go safely back home, they could never go back to being what they were. That was gone forever, and Al hated Markham more than he could remember hating anyone for taking that away from them. "Do you really think so?" he asked after a while.

"Yeah," Jean said softly. "They've been through a lot together." He hesitated a moment, then added, "I didn't mean to upset you. I could be wrong."

"I'm not upset," Al said. At least, not about that. He wasn't sure if Jean was right, but Alphonse certainly wouldn't begrudge his brother something like love, if that's what it was. Personally, he'd always viewed Roy as a sort of father figure and had always assumed it was the same for Ed, in spite of the rather antagonistic relationship the two had always shared. Maybe he was wrong. "Just surprised."

* * *

Roy was hunched over a map of Central, several books at his elbow. He was fairly certain that there was some sort of old access road out of the city, but it wasn't on the map and he was trying to figure out where he'd seen it by sifting through old books.

The idea of running away didn't sit very well with Ed, although he knew very well that it was the smartest thing to do. They couldn't hide in Samantha's house forever, so running was really the only option. Still. It bothered him. Every time he closed his eyes he could almost see the victims of Keats' experiments. Humans and animals tortured for the sake of building some sort of super soldier. It was sickening.

"Aha!" Roy said quietly, making a mark near the old park on the south side of town. "It should be somewhere around here. Says they used it back during the construction of the city to move building materials in, but it fell into disuse after. If it's not on the map, Keats probably doesn't know about it."

"I can't do it," Ed said suddenly, the words coming unbidden, but true.

"Can't do what?" Roy asked, looking up at him with a frown. "You not up to moving yet?"

"It's not that," Ed said, shaking his head. "I can't run. What that bastard is doing is _wrong_, and if we don't stop him, who will?"

Roy sighed and set down both pen and book, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "No one, probably," he said honestly. "What he's doing costs money, Ed. He's being funded from somewhere, and it's probably someone in the government, if not parliament."

"You really think parliament would fund chimera research like this?" Ed asked softly. If that was the case, they were no better than Bradley. It was a sobering thought. There was only one reason to build super soldiers after all, and if that's the direction Amestris was heading, it was even more important to put a stop to it.

"No," Roy said. "At least, not all of them. Although I wouldn't be surprised if a member or two was funneling funds to Keats under the table."

"There's got to be something we can do," Ed insisted. "I can't just walk away from this, Mustang. I can't. He's got to be stopped before he figures out out to do this," he made a vague gesture at himself, "to other people."

"I understand, but I just don't see how we can do anything. We're criminals as far as the military is concerned. The only people who would listen to us aren't important enough to do anything about it." For the first time, Ed noticed how tired Roy looked, and wondered how well he was sleeping. He'd been so focused on himself that it hadn't occurred to him the trouble he might be causing everyone else, he realized guiltily. "If you have any suggestions?"

Edward pushed away the guilt to be addressed later and focused on the problem at hand. "The only reason he's getting away with this is because it's a secret. No one would_ publicly_ sanction this kind of research, right?"

Roy nodded and Ed continued, "So, if we expose what he's doing, they'll have to shut him down."

"It's not that easy, Ed," Roy said with a sigh, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. "No one would believe us, and even if they did...Keats is very, very good at covering his tracks. That lab is officially a center for dealing with the results of illegal chimera research. On the surface, everything is what it's supposed to be. I'd be very surprised if an investigation turned up anything. What we need is proof, and we just don't have it."

"We don't, but I bet Kate does," Edward said, an idea beginning to formulate. If they had her on their side, they could bring it to the authorities. Much as Ed wanted to hunt down that bastard and tear him to shreds, he knew that it wouldn't change anything. Whoever was funding Keats would just find someone else to play the part, and nothing would change.

"Kate?" Roy stared at him blankly for a moment. "Oh, the scientist who helped us rescue you? Do you really think she'd take that risk?"

He couldn't be sure, but, "I think there's a good chance. What's going on there obviously doesn't sit well with her. If it did, she'd never have helped me."

Roy regarded him thoughtfully for a moment before nodding decisively. "Havoc!" he called, and the other man looked up from his game of cards with Al and Sam. "Feel like getting a little fresh air?"


	13. Announcement

**No, this is not a new chapter; it's an announcement. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.**

**Originally posted at my LJ.  
**

So, I've been sitting on Dichotomy for the last few weeks, feeling nothing but guilt about not working on it but being unable to muster the enthusiasm to do so.

Which got me thinking about my writing, fanfic, and fandom in general.

Anyone who has been following me for any length of time has probably noticed by now that I have big dreams for writing. I want to write books. I want to see those books in print someday. That same person might also have noticed that I never seem to actually get anywhere with this original fiction I keep talking about.

They'd be absolutely right about that. I don't.

I have to my name an endless supply of trite, done-to-death ideas (and a few gems), enough false starts and third chapter flops to be thoroughly embarrassing, and exactly one(1) complete rough draft that is so much the definition of the word that if it ever makes it through the far side of revisions it will have maybe five words in common with the original. And the only reason I have that much is because of NaNoWriMo, which seems to be the only time of year I manage to set everything else aside and just _write_. A pretty sorry collection for someone who has wanted to 'be a writer' since she was fifteen. That's twelve years, and I have very little to show for the time.

Now, there's a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which is my ability to procrastinate like a champ. One of the larger culprits though, is fanfic.

Don't get me wrong. I _love_ fanfic. That's actually, uh, part of the problem. I've been writing fanfic since before I knew what fanfic _was_. (Heralds of Valdemar stuff, if anyone's wondering. And no self-inserts for me! It was slash from the word go. *grin*) Fanfic is comfortable, and safe, and _worlds_ easier than original stuff. With fanfic the world is ready-made and populated by amazing characters that everyone already loves. The hard part is done for you. After that, it's like instant fiction! Just add plot. ;)

That's not true for everyone, of course. Some folks find it to be the exact opposite, that working within the constraints of a pre-existing universe is actually harder than building everything from scratch. And man, do I _envy_ them!

Fanfic is kind of like the training wheels I'm too afraid to take off. I know, looking at myself from a (mostly) objective perspective, that I have potential. I've got a bit of talent, and a bit of skill, and if I'm willing to do the hard, heavy lifting of writing book after book, I could be _good_. Good enough to sell, good enough to make a modest living doing something I love.

I've learned a lot from writing fanfic. There is absolutely no denying that I've grown as a writer because of it. If I wouldn't be COMPLETELY MORTIFIED, I'd link my old FFN account just to prove the point. But even ten years isn't enough to make me want to admit to writing that crap. XD

What it boils down to, is that it's time for me to stop. In a perfect world, I'd be able to write original stuff and fanfic at the same time, no sweat. As much as I would love to be this organized, super-productive person who can juggle both- I'm just not. I'm messy and disorganized and prone to doing things at the absolute last second. I vacillate between periods of intense focus and times where I have the attention span of a gnat. Those periods of focus are like gold, and if I keep spending them on fanfic, I'll never get anywhere.

I really, really wanted to hold off on this until I'd finished my WIPs, because I have this sense of obligation to all the amazing readers and the people I've met through my fic. Starting a chaptered fic is something like a promise, and one I'm loath to break.

Unfortunately, my active interest in FMA has waned. I don't participate in comms, I don't read fic anymore. That ship has sailed, and it's only that sense of obligation that's been keeping me working. I really, _really_ wanted to finish those fics, because I feel like I owe it to you guys.

There's two problems with that, though. The first is that I've lost interest. Every word is like pulling teeth, and I can almost guarantee that without enthusiasm, the quality will tank. Second, there's this feeling that I MUST finish before I'm allowed to work on anything else. So when I'm stalled on those fics, I'm stalled on _everything_, especially my original stuff.

So I'm calling it quits. Best I Ever Had and Dichotomy are on indefinite hiatus. They _may_ be completed sometime in the future if I get a second wind, but there are no guarantees, and it honestly isn't likely. I'd like to thank everyone who read and enjoyed my work, and offer my heartfelt apologies for not making it to the finish line. Especially the folks who offered (and in one case, started) to beta my most recent push to beat Dichotomy into submission. You're all made of sixteen kinds of awesome, and I'm sorry I wasted your time.

As for fic in general: You'll probably see one-shots crop up from time to time if the mood strikes. Nothing will be posted before it's complete, and that includes any longer endeavors I might tackle in the future, although at this point longfic is pretty unlikely.

Anyone interested in following my renewed attack on original fiction should friend my writing journal (fiction-foxtrot at livejournal) linked from my profile. It hasn't been updated in a while, but that's going to change here shortly.

It's been fun guys, and I've met some amazing people through my fic that I would never have had the pleasure to know, otherwise. I wish I could have finished these for you, but it is high time I stepped up and took responsibility for what I want, and for now at least, that means putting fanfic away to make space for what I really want to pursue.


End file.
